I’ve been having a wonderful April, and I hope you have too. Counting this morning’s poem, I think I’ve already written more than 30 poems this month (not all of my writing ends up on this blog), and I’m pretty happy with a few of the poems I’ve written for this challenge.
Yes, this has been another great National Poetry Month, and here’s a great kit to celebrate: The Writer’s Digest National Poetry Month Kit, which includes a digital version of The Poetry Dictionary, a couple paperbacks (Creating Poetry and Writing the Life Poetic), a tutorial on building an audience for your poetry, the 2014 Poet’s Market, and more! Click to continue.
For today’s prompt, write a location poem. Location could be physical–like the laundromat, a public park, a glacier, flying saucer, etc. Or location could be emotional, psychological, metaphysical, or some other kind of word that ends in -al. Or surprise everyone!
*****
Daniel Nester
Free up your poetry with constraints!
Learn how putting constraints on your poetry through poetic forms, blank verse, and other tricks can actually free up your poetry writing skills and enhance your creativity in Writer’s Digest’s first ever Poetry Boot Camp.
This boot camp will be led by April PAD (Poem-A-Day) Challenge guest judge Daniel Nester, author of How to Be Inappropriate and editor of The Incredible Sestina Anthology, and it will include a one-hour tutorial, personalized Q&A on a secure “attendees-only” message board, feedback on three original poems, and more.
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Here’s my attempt at a Location Poem:
“locate”
i am over here
and you’re over there
if you move here
i’ll move there
i used to be there
where you are
but i moved
when you arrived
nothing personal
not trying to be a jerk
i mean i am
but don’t take it that way
that would be so like you
taking things like that
and here you come
so there i go
*****
Today’s guest judge is…
Erika Meitner
Erika Meitner
Erika’s first book, Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore, won the 2002 Robert Dana-Anhinga Prize for Poetry, and was published in 2003 by Anhinga Press. Her second book, Ideal Cities, was selected by Paul Guest as a winner of the 2009 National Poetry Series competition, and was published in 2010 by HarperCollins. Her third collection, Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls, was published by Anhinga Press in 2011. Her newest collection of poems, Copia, is due out from BOA Editions in 2014.
In addition to teaching creative writing at UVA, UW-Madison, and UC-Santa Cruz, Erika has worked as a dating columnist, an office temp, a Hebrew school instructor, a computer programmer, a lifeguard, a documentary film production assistant, and a middle school teacher in the New York City public school system.
Meitner is currently an Associate Professor of English at Virginia Tech, where she teaches in the MFA program, and is also the associate faculty principal of Hawthorn House (one of the residential colleges at Virginia Tech).
Learn more here: http://erikameitner.com/.
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Poem Your Heart Out
Poems, Prompts & Room to Add Your Own for the 2014 April PAD Challenge!
Words Dance Publishing is offering 20% off pre-orders for the Poem Your Heart Out anthology until May 1st! If you’d like to learn a bit more about our vision for the book, when it will be published, among other details.
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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of Solving the World’s Problems. The book includes poems in a Kroger parking lot, at an arboretum, and other locales. Learn more about Robert here: http://www.robertleebrewer.com/.
*****
sitting/standing
your patch of skin
must itch
as you sip your drink
in a chair
in a building
in Ohio
among the barley fields
and
now you’re gone
surprised by a stranger
who leads you
over there.
The Listings
These keys, un-fashionable islands where I laze,
intersect three axes.
Long number strings–self-indulgent as hammocks
and mango mimosas–
fail the test of clear brevity. (I wallow in details like
“tangerine” and “nubby.”)
Out, beyond the surf and safe from seduction,
Puritans flap storm flags.
A toast to their concision. A postcard from this island
outweighs their fleet.
Find me butt-sunk and drifting downstream, slow.
Clouds here are hung on monofilament, and swing.
Route 104
The car shakes violently
and lets out a painful, whining growl
as I turn onto Route 104.
I’m forced to pull over,
and I jump out to assess the damage.
I find that my tire is missing.
An obstruction in the wheel well
Has blown my tire to smithereens!
I am silently shocked
the car is in one piece.
I am stranded on Route 104, at 1 a.m.
and realize I have no one to call.
Thankfully, chivalry is not dead.
A passing police officer stops,
and offers to bring me home.
I leave with him,
but my car is left stranded
on Route 104
with only three tires remaining.
WHEN BEING HERE IS NOWHERE I WANT TO BE BUT
NOWHERE ELSE WILL DO
When I think you are gone for good and all
and I am fine again, centred and well
Tears creep into words unbidden and before
I know why, I am wobbly with uncertainty
In the third last line of that poem about the
other little one who died such an awful way
Not so awful as your demise, of course, but
pretty horrid all the same…
when I was reading it aloud for the first time,
I choked, I mean it
I fell to pieces when I got to the part telling
him to go – to leave this place and soar…
This doesn’t happen to me…I mean melt-downs
over my own writing…and I found myself
wondering if the two of you – that little guy
and you –
If you were together in the ether near me
Haunting me so vividly, I could sense
your presence
And I couldn’t insist that either of you
should go away
Then, I learned that your father had his day
in court, the day after I read
And I knew you were here…I felt your presence
everywhere
Knew if I just stood still enough, you would float
to where I was and alight upon me
But not knowing if I had the sanity for this
I kept moving…
Then, just before bed, I forgot – slowed right
down and stopped
You were on me like a vampire or something
Oh – that sounds so melodramatic and wrong
But, it felt as if you had waited for just the right
moment and place
And now you had me and were settled around
me like a too tight shirt
Laying your tiny head against my chest…
I felt crazed with your sadness and with my own
Will this never end, this mourning for you…
Questions For Emily
Where do you run?
When you run away from me?
Is it to the lake?
Or the old oak tree?
Do you remember swinging from that tyre?
And later how it broke?
Or how we found your mother?
Hanging from the same rope?
Tip
Living with a disease called the east coast
The sky assumed the exact same shade of meteorological hope,
Blue, as it had the morning of
The occurrence of the tornado,
Which had begun with a
Party celebrating the birthday of someone long
Dead who would have been 54. He died at 23.
Sometimes the cut itself is the punch line, sometimes
The punch line is performing retrieved acts of civility, is
Alerting authorities to a faucet that never stops
Running in a rest stop off I-95, south of D.C. but
North of Richmond.
Chad Jones
WHERE’S MY GPS?
What is the location
of success?
What should one do?
To possess,
a slippery fish?
Drop a coin?
Hint a wish?
Can you map
it’s coordinates?
Text me
the address?
Near Light
Nighttime
and the Natural Neon lights expose
every Nuance
Navigate
between the Nile and Nairobi
there you will find me
sipping Nectar
observing the Nebula
creating our Nexus
waiting Nestled
where U-n-I-verse Naked
Near light
eMinor
Whale, not a fish, out of water.
A beached whale decomposes and bloats
as the methane fills its body
and if there is no route for the pressure
to be released – it explodes
very messily
emitting a pungent smell
that taints a large area long after
the physical evidence has been removed.
There are many YouTubes of this phenomenon
I have watched most of them.
People find them amusing.
I find them to be too close for comfort.
It has been many years since I felt the freedom
of seawater buoying me effortlessly.
I miss the light-play glinting on shoals of fish
and the rhythmic sway of weed,
the texture moods of stone, sand, shell, pebble
and the corner-of-the-eye dart of octopus and squid.
I dream these days of being free from the pull of gravity
and lack of air seems a trifling bargain willingly given
for such glorious power and control.
I tried to call it grounded
to fool myself this was a good place to be
and as my carcass swelled I faked serenity,
smiling as I smoothed my hair with a mother-of-pearl brush
ignoring the stabs of pain inflicted by my weight pressing on the rocks.
Loggerhead turtles lumber, heads above the water in my memories,
a knowing look in their eyes.
I can’t maintain pretence when I contemplate my loss of place
in the sheltering sea
and grounded is a silly substitute for
beached
as I am
and how much of me has died and rots
and is this weeping enough to save this place
from the taint of my explosion?
Michele Brenton April 2014
Location Unknown – Amirae Garcia
Don’t you remember how you used to be there for every birthday party, every soccer game, and every insignificant school play? Remember the look on my face as you went through the doors, looking like a war hero returning home to his lifetime lover?
You do remember that I am your lover, right? You used to be everywhere, all over me. You used to linger on my hips and live on my mouth, sighing hallelujahs on my tongue in the only language we knew; and now I can’t get you to hum with me.
You have gone so far away to a location unknown and I am here, I am here, I am here. Come back to me, come back to me, come back to me.
They say everything is location
My cat is
Sooo
Confused.
I did not dress today.
She purred and got ready to cuddle.
I log into the computer and fuss
And enter credentials and download
WORK.
My Cat is
Sooo
Confused.
I
Am
Home
And ignoring her.
I test telecommuting
Work from home for the first time
Muddle through me and my
Soo
Confused
Cat.
Location is
Everything…
Megan McDonald
Chicago
your history, still
ebullient among the concrete
your jazz pulls
at forgotten strings
stretching across looms
reconfiguring
the triangulation of
tapestries
while lollygagging on
the subway
you take me in
hiss honk sniff
episodes
melding into dreams
the mares of night
bucking through
alleyways
calling for alertness
the senses alive
wind whipping
into new distractions
give me your food
your art
your whispers
tell your story
for you call me
in my dreams
to come visit again
A shadow lurks in the corners of my mind.
Always lurking, cautiously, slyly, eerily waiting by my side.
Snow, sunshine, rain, I see me walking pass the window by,
And yet, I linger haunted, by this same melodic rhyme.
Night sings to me, at times, sings mournful songs of bliss,
While Daylight finds its way, through creamy satin slits.
Beautifully swaying, like wind gliding across the sand
While I sit, slowly unraveling, sand pebbling down glass hands.
Waiting, treading, drowning, this all while you hide?
Grasping, clutching, clamping hold of something deep inside.
What is your name? Monster speak now
You here?! Put a name to your face that horrid face I fear!
Creeping, crawling under me, I feel traces of your filthy slime,
Yet you lie, hidden, deeply veiled by fragile sheets of time.
So I shook my wrist slowly, watched it fall down to the last
Grain of sand, sweeping gently, across my frozen hands.
April Poem-A-Day 23 – Location
Location: Fear
a thousand-eyed reality
existing in a parallel universe
denying the very probability
of its own being.
Location: within my heart
close to me
deep in my thoughts
denying light and joy
a whirlwind of ungentle
moves
concealing
the X
which marks the spot.
Location: near.
*
Location
Windows small, open wide
on the loveliest place
where I can hide.
Behind the rocks, silken,
sand covers my toes, helping
me forget my woes.
A favourite place, near water blue
beside the sea, will always be
the place for me,
and you.
Nowhere (a roundabout)
Our hearts can’t keep chasing our feet,
making circles this way.
Something must give,
and I can’t live
with this heartache each day
I feel your heart and it’s dismay.
The pain I must forgive.
You chose to leave.
I choose to grieve.
The break we will outlive.
I wish you could yourself forgive.
I wish I could believe,
someday we’ll meet,
healing complete.
Perhaps I am naïve.
Today our hearts need a reprieve.
I long for a retreat.
You chose your way;
there’s naught to say.
We should admit defeat.
Beginning Road to Sobriety
Sobriety, a dreaded place to live, eats a man alive:
seismic ruptures of limbs and heart, stone cold issuing up
from beneath neural drama, sweat pressed through every pore,
like dry ice searing the chemical mix of blood with blood.
Addiction swathes me in an ancestor’s quilt, each crazy
patch mismatched as through the years of irrational craving
I nitpicked stitches apart, unraveled trims, shredded fabric
basic to my structure, until all connections dissolved.
Sobriety chokes my spirit while I vomit from the need,
the beast that won’t release me unless I die.
You cannot tame the mountain.
She is a dragon:
Exhilarating, Incredible, Beautiful.
She may captivate, inspire, entertain,
But she is not your friend.
She will not hesitate to bury you if you take the wrong path.
The Station
Every night in dreams
I am facing desolate ruins
carrying whispers of lost voices
on the wind.
I gaze upon the station clock
surrounded by serene blue,
hands frozen on time
whilst dust dances full of verve
amidst beams of light
striking through glassless window frames.
Moss green seats line the walls
awaiting their turn to take the weight
off aching feet.
I am hurrying through the emptiness
trying to locate the right exit
weary of the lack of queues at each stand
with my ticket grasped firmly in my hand
aiming to head safely home.
The Quiet Song of Earth by Natalie Gasper
A flower is a simple thing
With its roots and stems, and petals and leaves.
A beautiful sight for all to behold
But how many can truly see?
This gentle flower may be hiding great secrets,
Those delicate petals there to share with all a story.
Or perhaps they simply desire to make us laugh
Best lean in close to hear their soft-whispered words.
Just think of all the flowers that lay at peace within the forest,
Surely none has time to hear to them all.
Instead, one might listen to the trees.
Far greater are they in number; their stories longer
They have more to share.
Flowers share only simple beauty, whereas trees share a lifetime
The life of a flower is but a blink of time in the eyes of a tree.
To imagine the change they have seen!
Centuries back their wide reach spans,
Remembering a time when nature was harmonious with man;
Wanting for those days to come once more.
These trees share desire, but also know grief
For the loss of their brothers,
Joy at the start of each sun kissed day.
To those who listen with an open mind they bring comfort,
As sitting in a tree; to feel its strong, sturdy boughs that have survived violent storms,
Ever graceful as they dance in the wind,
Is to know the true meaning of comfort.
Understanding this, one can share in the knowledge of the trees
That standing alone does not a lonely heart make, and that
While all may exist separately our roots forever connect.
Smiling at this newfound understanding,
This man sitting in the tree turns
Able to see the forest in a new light.
As he looks, he spies an old man in the distance
Resting upon a cliff, deep in meditation.
Smugly the man thinks his knowledge greater
For what could a rock teach?
But this old man is wise.
He spent his life listening to the stories of the flowers and the trees,
Feeling in his heart as though something was askew.
Thinking that in viewing the forest as a whole he would find his answer
He climbed a cliff, and closed his eyes,
And heard the wind.
The wind has the most difficult job,
Carrying the songs of all to make a sonorous melody.
He whispers gently through the forest, quietly passing through the flowers,
Bringing their sweet stories to life.
He rustles the leaves of the trees as they dance playfully in his silken grasp.
If one listens closely the wind carries an intricate song
That sends shivers down humanity’s spine.
For in this melody the wind holds the truth,
Showing the eternal beauty in nature.
As the old man resting upon the cliff
Listens intently to the story within the wind,
He hears the flowers and the trees;
The harmony of the gurgling streams and babbling brooks
And feels the power of the mountains behind him.
Those ancient giants who move for none and have lived through all,
Said to be home to Father Time,
Because the passage of time means little to them
As they stand guard for all eternity.
Mountains create the most breath-taking sights;
Purple hued in the winter and capped with gleaming snow.
When the moon leaves the starry night sky,
The mountains will dance with the rising sun,
Throwing shadows and bright rays of color as far as the eye can see.
The wind is the child of these powerful guardians,
Forever whistling around their feet;
Helping eagles to soar through majestic skies.
One eagle comes to rest upon the cliff
To share nature’s secrets
With the old man Father Time.
Releasing a cry, his mighty wings outspread,
The great sun bursts forth
As all the forest begins to wake.
The meadowlark begins to chirp in time
With the echoes of deer bounding through the trees,
Floating as if carried by the whispers upon the wind.
This is real and true.
Nothing exists in the world that can best
The unending symphony of nature’s beauty,
Of the earth’s pure spirit.
Oregon
The hills
were like finely
crafted lines;
the perfect
combination
of words
wielded
by a Wordsmith,
who dipped
his pen into
the valleys
to draw rivers
with his words,
that branched out
into the streams
that fed the forests,
so the clearings
in between
could grow
the wildflowers,
I’d pick in
Summers,
to make bouquets
for my Mother;
of Queens Lace,
of Bachelor Buttons,
and of the Wild
Sweet Peas,
who’s fragrance
carried with them
the beauty of his
language;
an arrangement
of letters
given for me.
Memory of Home
All through the house
the vacant rooms rest
Candles unlit
dust-covered dishes
Cobwebs cling to picture frames
of loved ones long gone
Shards of memories
blanket the stillness
Of laughter and joy
of tears and grief
Warmth from fires to ease the cool nights
books to read and read again
Letters written, sent received
sharing news from near and far
Heartbeat
movement of thoughts pulsing
And each quiet space
breaths a life of moments unceasing
Once vibrant and alive
now whispers of silence deafen
With only faint echoes for company
ghosts pace against the narrow halls.
Milk River
The wind is a spooked horse charging
across the open plain, mane and tail
stretched straight back, dead grass
shivering in waves.
You buy an apple pastry from
the glass case, all buttery crumbs and
autumn chill. A tumbling sun spins
across the road. You watch it go
and you drive on.
In the west, a back yard fenced by
mountains, tattered storm clouds flutter
on the line. A hawk hovers above
a stubble field, circling to the
silent beat of drums.
It makes you feel like one of them,
the hoodoo stones, the warriors who
guard the Sweetgrass Hills. You sit among
them as the river glints below,
and listen to their stories drift
and settle into you.
Julie Germain
Place in Life
sweet formula, my mother’s song
wet sheets and talking animals
I’m in a good place now
a talking doll, the alphabet
a book about Madeline
I’m in a good place now
got spots, and weird body parts
one thing is clear: boys are jerks
I’m in a good place now
I am size 6, that’s sooo fat!
but well, my boyfriend is a stud
I’m in a good place now
I can’t believe, my own kids!
my own anti-age cream too
I’m in a good place now
warm quilt, a pair of socks, hot tea,
I’m looking at the book I wrote
now I am in a good place
__________
by Lucretia Amstell
Diamond In The Rough
How I hunger for you
You who I long to know
Show yourself to me
Summoned seed please grow
Here in this lone place
Craving a warming touch
A foul player is at hand
Vanquishing in me much
Amuse me misuse me
It’s my battle I cry
How can I be offended
There is no me no lie
Mad and sad so cold
How can I keep warm?
I’m not really there
The silhouette hasn’t formed
Whirling my weary way
Through this thick darkness
The journey of my self
Lost and pained and harnessed
A wolf in sheep’s clothing
Always looking to devour
The dirty denial inside
Consuming it by the hour
Preying and being preyed
A hungry place to be
I can never satisfy it
We my shadow and me
Surrounded by it now
Stealthily on the prowl
A pair of skillful predators
Thirsting together we howl
Crazed and abandoned
Looking to find a meal
Will we consume it
Or will it eat us for real?
At the end of the spiral
Lies the bottom of the pit
Dizzy in this atmosphere
I need sunrise from this fit
Starved for who I am
All I have is me
Feeding on my solitude
Letting go and setting free
Bearing a birth this death
Conclude it with great strain
Vanish and be nameless
Gone the anonymous pain
There you are shining there
Unpolished with edges
A raw piece of reflection
Poking through deep dredges
Sparkling there I see
You’ve been there all long
Buried and hidden
Refusing to play your song
You’re pushing new ground
Inching out some maturity
Breaching the old barrier
Of flawless obscurity
I’ll cultivate and care for you
Helping you to mend
I’ll soften your rough edges
Strength I’ll give and lend
Satiated I’ll become
Knowing a new light
Seeing it so fully
Claiming this fresh fight
Cutting a beautiful edge
Will be my new obsession
Putting on finishing touches
Polishing my possession
A jewel precious and true
So brilliant it can’t hide
For one perpetually seeking
Finds it searching undenied
I see the twinkle in my eye
And I will be enough
To light my future path
A diamond in the rough
IN THE LIBRARY
Words creep off the pages
of books that surround me.
They form a conga line,
switching spots so freely
that I cannot keep pace.
New sentences emerge.
Strange mystical meanings
float about them converge.
I snatch some letters from
the musty flustered air
and paste them in blank books.
The pages they fled from
don’t know or care.
Tannery Park by Jacqualine A Hart
In the midst of a lion’s roar
all I could hear above the
one in my ear was my
colleague, Tannery Park
7 p.m., don’t be late
Kayaks lined the river
like a box of cigars
waiting for the release of pleasure
as we step into our
wooden like caskets
As if bobbing for apples
too tired to stand
I saw him there
free-flowing
dragging the current along
The moment erupted
“Call 9-1-1″
“Roger toss me a line”
Gentle as a newborn we guided
our unknown visitor to shore
Hands that once clapped
at his child’s recital
now shriveled and cold
Arms that wrapped love lay
lifeless in this unexpected resting place
Reds and blues flash
across the earthen tones
attendants gather as if
paying respects and yellowing of
“police line do not cross”
Alternative Locations
In the valley falls the rain.
Train tracks hold the rumbling train.
Pirates sail the Spanish Main,
But I don’t know where that is.
Lots of birds build nests in trees.
Dogs and cats are homes for fleas.
Castles held the lords of Guise.
(But I’ve lived in none of these.)
NIGHTWALKER
The sleeping bear
did not awake
as she swept passed
his slumbering
gate.
A night hike up
snow plated slopes,
mittened fingers
scrape ice off win-
dows.
Past buckberry
thistles pushing
sunrise into
her kitchen steam-
ing,
greetings of cof-
fee, hugs, hellos.
She knows aloes
with onions will
grow.
Heidi R. de Contreras
Location, Location, Location
Not everything is about business.
Some people’s business is nobody’s
business if you know what I mean.
People are always making a point
of location. It’s all about the location—
and I get a text that says I can be located
by a certain number— my wife’s number.
I’m suspect the government knows too
but are not obliged to tell you so.
Attic
It’s dark sometimes
Light permeates
an occasional wall crack
stirring up dust to swirl
and settle on delicate cobwebs
My old things cast
frightening shadows
so much larger
than they were in life
I worry for the things I can’t find
If not here
then where?
Sit in the creaking rocking chair
Back and forth
Back and forth
Again and again
Replaying each failure
each missed chance
to do things differently
to be a different, better me
Old wood creak
sounds like voices
My mother
My lover
My own
A chorus of unanimous disappointment
endlessly, rhythmically creaking
I can’t leave
but it lulls me to sleep
It’s dark sometimes
Here
in my head
Dream Home
Each night is the same as the last.
You wander, searching for a place
to be. You are moving house, or you
have just moved or plan to move.
Tiny apartments, vast decaying
mansions, high-rises with elevators
that won’t start or stop or take you
where you want to go.
Each night is unlike the last. You walk
dark streets in the rain. Every room
opens into another. Windows look out
over the channel, whales breeching.
Underground chambers. Locked doors.
Warehouses of cast-offs and deep
treasures. Bare rooms with tall casements
and linoleum floors. Birds beat
against the glass, air thick
with white feathers. It’s difficult
to breathe underwater. You worry
it will never end. Your legs wane
rubbery with walking. You want
to sit down but all the furniture
is elderly, it wobbles, and it is so,
so quiet. The very walls echo
with silence. You have lived here
before. You will live here again.
Room after room after room,
you will keep looking.
~ sharon brogan
http://www.sbpoet.com
Location Services
[Dreamworld Heights, Indiana]
“What, do they make dreams there?”
“No, but they’ll sell ‘em,
in six-packs.”
-A. Ault-
“Institutional”
We’re in here together, yet all alone.
Written By: Sean Drew
“Institutional”
We’re in here together, yet all alone.
Written By: Sean Drew
Realtors’ Mantra
If you work in real estate
you know the mantra:
location, location, location.
That’s all that matters
to your buyers.
Some want to be
freeway close, walking distance
to the beach, shopping,
the local movie house.
Some want mountain, city, ocean views
or to dwell in the hills
with the rich and famous.
Remember don’t drive them through
the slums or where the homeless hang out.
Your job is find them
the location that suits their fancy
and their pocketbook.
I imagined you
You are you, you have always been you,
but I made you someone else
in my head,
I imagined you
into being someone else
in my head.
I did it because I want you because I adore you.
I adore you too much.
I don’t love you; no, that would have been easier to deal with.
My adoration for you is unhealthy.
I want you inside of me so I can be you,
I want a ghost-like collection of the particles of your soul shaped like your body
so I can walk into that beautiful illuminating figure
and magically fit your body shape perfectly
so I can be you
because I adore you so.
But then I realize,
that this has never happened.
I imagined it
and then I realize, that
if I made you up inside my head
I can imagine you out of it as well
I can’t promise anything,
but I’ll try to make a see-through collection of the particles of broken promises
and not imagine my adoration for you anymore,
but instead imagine you out of my imagination,
out of my existence
You’re still inside of me,
but I can make you leave.
I can make you leave
because I made you up.
I did that.
You are only you.
You are not who I made up.
I still have a lot to learn.
But now I know that people are not supposed to go into each other.
INCONSPICUOUS AND LEARING
Quite conscious she is that here she lays,
surrounded by things a-plenty.
Frozen, smiling, perfected.
But that was a different home,
painted white,
weathered, and
solidly shifting.
Now, aware she is, the flowers confused for hair
are bathed in moonlight, and
suddenly she is cold.
-JR Simmang
Swing
The aged wood shows through
On the spots where the paint has chipped away
It was painted white long ago
But is still a beauty today
It chains have been replaced
Because the rust was eating through
But its integrity is still strong
Its memories shining through
This heirloom had been a staple
Long before I was born
It has weathered all our battles
And all of nature’s storms
I have not sat here
For more years than I can count
Every memories floods back
As they all being to mount
Not one thing has changed
Yet nothing is the same
I find myself at peace
Because in the motion I hear my name
Christy Lynn Richardson
Locating
You often gestured to the sky
from the front porch
in our driveway
your arms burdened with bundles of shopping–
S.O.S. pads, apples, Danish for Sunday breakfast–
and you told me Dad was flying in that plane
winking high above our house.
Often, he was, or he might have been.
He traveled to every state, often more than once.
When he left, we went to McDonald’s.
When he returned, he assured me that a Hyatt in Louisville
was the same as a Hyatt in San Antonio.
He rained tiny bottles of shampoo and amber bars of soap
on my open palms.
Now I command Siri to tell me which planes are overhead.
And there, invisible to a craned neck in the driveway or a squint from the front porch,
is a constellation of planes, on my phone’s tiny screen.
So many planes, so much over my head.
But I’m glad for the mystery when I was 5, 6, 7. I am glad for the hope.
When I was young, when you were younger, we could not know, could not be certain
if he was there, surfing among the clouds. And yet we were.
Do you remember the planes, the driveway, the porch?
When you pointed, I waved.
In Cornwall
Oh to be out on Cornish cliffs gazing
at reflections of a million stars
twinkling in the ripples on the azure sea,
where the air is clean and bracing,
as I walk amongst the springtime flowers
after eating a Cornish cream tea.
Con Space
When you regularly attend a convention, you enter a different realm. People you haven’t seen in months or even years become your best friends again. It is like you never left. The mundane world ceases to exist. You are no longer your day job. You are who you choose to be perhaps a dragon slayer, a witch, a kitty-cat, or just someone a little cooler than you are in real life. There are hugs to exchange and stories to tell. The more you attend, the more people you recognize and yet every time you make new friends. These are the people who love what you love. It’s like a family reunion except less dysfunctional and more fun. And even if you miss a con here and there, you know that when you return it will be like you never left. But Monday always rolls around and there are good-byes to say. There are pieces of you, you leave back at the hotel, ones that just don’t belong in the muggle world. And you pass back through the portal, return to cubicle or cash register. You fade back into the background where you shall remain until the next con comes.
Dana A. Campbell
No matter the location,
no matter how she feels,
whenever I’m around
she’ll be there at my heels.
She doesn’t care where we go,
she doesn’t even care when.
So long as I am there with her,
my dog is content again.
Secure My Rescue
Speechless lives inside self-
control where silence bobs on dreary
surfaces lapping at your shores
one thousand miles away.
Stealing windjammer’s license
to play with grainy bits of sand
floating
in the sound,
you sculpted granules into castles as I hovered
face down on superficial tongue, pushed
back and forth by windy signals, heard
marooned pirate’s torn purple flag
flapping in the wind, found a glinting veil
of morning fog to hide behind. Speechless lives
inside this ocean in my veins, pulsing, reserved,
reversed deserver, my floppy limbs caved over,
connected to you still, my love’s fortress demolished
  by an unsuspecting force
  the sea
could not see in herself.
-Linda G Hatton
I had fun playing with anagram.
Awww . . . darn spacing! Here it is without the typos, but without the spacing either. Boo!
Secure My Rescue
Speechless lives inside self-
control where silence bobs on dreary
surfaces lapping at your shores
one thousand miles away.
Stealing windjammer’s license
to play with grainy bits of sand
floating
in the sound,
you sculpted granules into castles as I hovered
face down on superficial tongue, pushed
back and forth by windy signals, heard
marooned pirate’s torn purple flag
flapping in the wind, found a glinting veil
of morning fog to hide behind. Speechless lives
inside this ocean in my veins, pulsing, reserved,
reversed deserver, my floppy limbs caved over,
connected to you still, my love’s fortress demolished
by an unsuspecting force
the sea
could not see in herself.
The intended version is on my blog. **sigh**
Test
Oakland
on the corner of neon prairies and hushed sunsets
since the excuse of giving in without giving out humanity
lanterns encased the question
every cobble stepped by sailors during a war
–of manifestation,
smiles in irony of the green moss
anchoring life in the surrounding space
and when the light revives your face
the same paragraphs engorge the air
within your pores, my fair
a despair encased like a bluff’s flame
–remember the pier Kate and its arches;
remember the bridge and its quandary rises
PERU
At work there is a memo stating
that we must refrain from talking
about work. So let me tell you
the story about the erupting Volcano
near a train wreck that happened in Peru.
The volcano was inactive for years
pacified by the parade of sacrificial
virgins until steam powered modernity
and feminism arrived asking
for the equal sacrifice of male
sport stars. The government
quickly made the difficult
decision to change traditions
so they could continue to win
at soccer. Thus the population
boom as the no longer virgins
married professional atheletes
creating the next generation Z
who thought the volcano
was only a small mountain
so built a new city on the slope
complete with high speed rails.
The volcano finally woke up
to the local sexual discrimination
against copulating with geography.
He got so upset he started spitting
out smoke over the local ski resort
scaring the no longer virgins
who were spending the day
in the hot tub. Then the train
came full of Venezuelan tourists
taking pictures of the volcanoes
north face not realizing that he
thought it was his bad side.
Upon seeing the photos
the volcano decided to erupt
sending the train off the tracks
and making everyone not
want to work for his company.
The Stage
At the curtain call, he bows
again. This is his moment. With him
I recall a place that was no place, a certain
moment of self within a self, a play.
A classroom once with worn out texts, teacher
years past prime, one who made us
memorize lines that fit in many mouths
forever. Drama enacted on cracked linoleum.
Lighting from grimy windows. A wardrobe
of sneakers and jeans. How we all became
Hamlet that afternoon, scene so perfect
it scripted a sister-soul. A space of countless
questions. Where asking
is beautiful enough.
- Joanne M. Clarkson
INDOORS – OUTDOORS
There was a big, blank wall in my classroom.
Year after year I struggled to populate the thing,
cross-hatching it with seasonal symbols,
overloading it with a gigantic paper Christmas tree,
posting scads and scads of student work –
we’d stage a walk-about once a month to view
what everyone was accomplishing.
It was fashionable then.
One summer I read volumes of Nat Geo
and Psych Today. Found myself longing to be
where the wind blew free on a number of
continents. Learned that every office without
a window needed at least a poster of the great
outdoors to bring Nature into the crowded
and sterile workplace. Drove to the paint store and
rummaged through the rolls of home décor wallpapers.
Here is what I found: my boys wanted a space theme,
so we settled on Earth as seen from the Moon. It lasted
ten years. I had fun with the wallpaper paste bucket,
booking the sections and slinging it onto the walls.
Fresh from my triumph at home, I purchased
the Lush Jungle wall mural for school and
surrendered an entire weekend to cutting and sticking
and carefully climbing the ladder – then sluicing
paste off the vinyl floor tiles. On Monday morning,
the first period kids were not sure what was
different in their classroom. Second period had
Homeroom, and took advantage of talk-time
to ask questions and look about. By the end of the day
our new jungle was a big hit on campus.
Having followed the first rule of gamesmanship,
I had not asked the official powers for permission.
I just did the job. Nary a peep of dissension ever
arose.
I have to say that the mural contributed greatly
to my overall serenity for a number of years.
The kids got to pick and choose which parts of the
scene got masked for the Valentine Hearts display,
and which tree in the jungle became their Christmas tree.
We had a lot to talk about, those trees and I, as I
mentally strolled the path leading ever deeper into
orchid-laden greenery.
PAD CHALLENGE 2014 #23 LOCATION
TAKE YOUR PARTY WITH YA,
WHEREVER YOU GO
It makes no difference where you are
It makes no difference where you go
You can be here on Earth or Mars
Take your party with ya, wherever ya go
A mansion out in Hollywood could be
The place that makes ya flow
Or a ranchero down in Mexico
Take your party with ya, wherever ya go
There’s that Swiss chalet up in the Alps
If ya sing you can hear an echo
Or down in the valley of the Jolly Green Giant
Just take your party wherever you go
Float lazily by la casa ‘neath a starry-studded sky
Singing all the words to “O Sole Mieee-oooohhhh”
No matter where you land at the end of the ride
Take your party with ya, wherever you go
Eat au bon pain dan la rue des Paris
Wearing nothing but a chapeau
After a night of la vin et bon appétit
Take that party wherever you go
A party’s a party no matter where or how
Whether rich or you got no dough
Don’t need a plane ticket or crowd to follow
If you take your party wherever you go!
Moving Day
I am sitting in a house that is slowly emptying
It’s moving day
Don’t know what to say
I’m taking home with me
To plant it new
Miles away
WATERMELON FIELDS
Sinking in the sandy loam
surrounded by black diamonds
there are no sparkling gems
it is a different kind of treasure
growing on leafy vines
in the heat of summer
I bend until my aching back
forces me to stand and stretch
gazing across a thousand rows of green
I sigh and wipe my sweaty brow
with a red handkerchief nodding my head
at the laborer next to me
for we are one in the same
in watermelon fields.
Daniel Roessler
This is fantastic
There
Turns out that There
is a moving target.
You like to think of it as a place
but really it’s a feeling.
When you get There
you look around
you see things
and people
and light
and me.
Things ask
to be
touched and held.
People want
to be
seen and felt.
Light likes
to be
received and reflected.
Me wishes
to be
imagined and awakened.
It’s your imagination
that creates this place
you call There.
It’s the feeling you get
when you’re There
that defines the space.
And the things.
the people
the light.
Me.
Location Poem
Location is everything
I only want to be near you…
I lean my head on the hard granite
That is all I have left to comfort me
You said your dying would set me free
But it has only bound me tighter
As darkness claims the light from the sky
I only want to be near you
Nancy Bell 2014
Found and Lost
Tethered to
some satellite
circling somewhere,
your GPS pings
the coordinates of me.
And even though you
and the world know
exactly where I am,
I wonder.
This is fantastic
Foreclosure
What do those people with organizational
kills know? They can’t locate our want to
or trace superb moments to the antiques
that became of them; the everydayness
of family life that bares no address. They’ll
never know where fairytale sheets and sunny
beach towels draped to fort in giddy children;
stand in the yard, starved of a marker, near
a grave the size of one loyal boxer. They’ll
never pinpoint where the seed of struggle
is buried or exactly where the dream derailed.
They’ll never know where we knelt
to polish the forks in our hearts.
They just don’t know.
powerful words
Selling the House.
The market is hot.
It’s spring and the yard looks great.
The paint is fresh,
and we’ve picked up every dead bird that
Zeus the cat (who is ours, but not
Because the last owner left him here
And we will, too) leaves as a gift.
We’ve swept up the seed pods and
cleared out the junk
(Even though I didn’t want to let it go
as it is all there is of my life you see.)
But closets full to tumble say “crazy hoarders”
And don’t sell for the price we want.
Wanted I guess I should say.
Why no bidding war? We ask the nice
girl who sold us the place (and
won our trust to sell it for us.)
Why is everyone else making money
while we wait in silence, vexed,
cleaning again and again and again
Is it the cat?
She only smiles and say the price is too high
the market is slow, the building next door too lous
the neighborhood not family friendly
(Is this the same woman who said
we’d sell in forty eight hours?)
And the weather, well, the weather, but mostly?
Location, location, location.
I can real relate – our house is for sale and the buyers ans trying to get out of the contract
AARGH!
Day 23 location
Foreclosure
What do those people with organizational
kills know? They can’t locate our want to
or trace superb moments to the antiques
that became of them; the everydayness
of family life that bares no address. They’ll
never know where fairytale sheets and sunny
beach towels draped to fort in giddy children;
stand in the yard, starved of a marker near
a grave the size of one loyal boxer. They’ll
never pinpoint where the seed of struggle
is buried or exactly where the dream derailed.
They just don’t know.
No Lawns Allowed
She dreams
of putting down roots
by the water
beside blue flag iris
and pickerel weed
(a quiet place – clean, serene,
inhabited by wild life & wildflowers,
peopled by trees, patient, forgiving)
and living out her life
one day at a time
PSC/2014
Secret Garden
Free falling down the elevator shaft, the doors finally open
To an underground greenhouse deep within
Relieved to be home, I stumble towards the heart
Crouching near the fountain
I cry out with sickness and pain
Rocking back and forth
Empty except for grief, rage, and despair
Until an angel’s golden touch comforts me
As she reminds me patiently that we are one
In disbelief, I wake myself from the dream
Still recalling the scent of the flowers in her hair
The sight of the dew upon her breast
As if it were the truth
Years pass and I enter an arboretum to get quiet
Finding a familiar bench, I sit down
All is still save the sound of water ambling over stone
I rise to find the source, gliding through the brush
Tears come to my eyes as I find my old hiding spot
But I’m not there – not even a shadow remains
I look for clues in the tiny pool and catch my own reflection
In the mirror, she nearly blinds me with her eternal glow
And so I take my turn to seek
Day 23 A location poem
It is 11:30 am on 5th Avenue and 42nd Street
We are walking along the famous avenue
after delivering photos
to the Daily News Building
when we pass Frank O’Hara walking the other
way. Of course I didn’t know him then
(or he me for that matter)
In the lobby Doug and I gawped
at our world, circled the planet repeating,
“Athens,
Bombay
Beijing
Madrid”
just for fun of the saying.
In dreams the sun was the size of this globe,
the earth the size of a walnut,
and we could be at Grand Central Station
just by turning a corner. Glorious!
All the Colettes, Stanleys and Williams
I passed (unawares) in those days were humming
springs and summers of banging around aimlessly,
restlessly. The past pulls things out of a deep well
and what or whom do we really recall with the certainty
of eating lunch in the Automat? We put our nickels in
and out came sandwiches, sodas and cakes we craved. We thought
the future would be like that—long afternoons in a new country
where everyone would know our names. What do all
our dreams become when life drives us
to the distances we never anticipated?
alana
WHERE ARE YOU?
Descartes says the pineal gland
is where we be. Swaddled in a bland
scrotal blob of ground glass hanging
between two lobes of gangly grey
brain pans. Right in the middle where
we’re supposed to be, right? Mon cher,
where were you last night? I implored
your eyes but they are no more
windows to the soul than Descartes’
grand pineal dream, an upstart
scheme concocted by old men mad
for the fountain of youth and sad
excuses. Cogito ergo …
the stink of the back seat, yellow
nicotinoid flumes, spackled hair.
Absent the center, tell me where.
Central Pennsylvania
Pink ring of peonies next to the house
Where a once-nurse is delivered a tray
Three times each day by a girl
From the school behind these chestnut trees,
Flowering around curves banked with ferns
Driving through mulch that shifts
Decades of silence, of waiting, of studied despair.
Centuries weigh the air.
Silver streams ribbon through woods
Behind fences easily slipped past
Next to wavering mats of wild watercress
(the better to eat you, my peppery dear)
Along trails made by others
Not quite absent, not quite imagined.
Sky shut, judicial trees wait
For feet on the silky path
Uphill over moss stars, hollow reeds,
Past dry rounded rock beds
Netted with spider webs
Which span her face, catch his fingers,
Witness their subsequent kiss.
Jo Steigerwald
i am here
he is there
love everywhere
My husband lives on the History Channel,
refighting battles from former wars.
Volume up, disconnected here, plugged in there.
I prefer Home and Garden.
Plant this, paint that, move something here to there.
Redesigning both of us in my head.
Our lives programmed on the Cartoon Network.
“This Is Clearly not a Truck”
No
engine no
direction no
clear purpose no
side windows no
signs of spring no
obvious reason no
means to get us anywhere no
notice of transfer of ownership no
thing to say with that gaping mouth no
sense of province or marking a border no
sense of the immobility of the entire street no
sense of being a nuisance to the gas station operators no
operator no
colour no
clues of past lives no
way to take off with those who can
start
again
Jérôme Melançon
@lethejerome
What’s Your Destination?
By Mary Bauer
Where will you go?
Sun or snow?
Mountains or sea?
Where will it be?
I don’t want to roam.
I’d rather stay home.
I’m trying Walt’s suggestion (though I suspect I missed spacing one line–and there’s no way to check without starting over.)
GPS
We named her after Mother
who also corrected us on every journey,
pointing out our wrong turns,
who complained when we took
the long way there.
who went along on every trip, every trek,
every time we took the car for a spin,
but who too never seemed to enjoy the ride.
Now, though Mother’s long gone, I still feel her there
riding in the back, sitting erect,
her purse perched in her lap
peering over my shoulder,
eye on the speedometer
warning me to top of the tank,
to check the oil and water.
She can’t quite replace Mother, though she tries.
The Midwestern accent never varies,
flat and bland.
and she never asks me to turn down the volume
or change the station
though she often interrupts my conversations
miles before my turns.
and even Mother would mock her phonetic
misrendering of place names,
sounding every syllable.
Sometimes a touch of malice makes me wish
I’d taught Mother to drive, just so
she too would have to listen
to someone just as eager as she to tell
someone where to go.
very nice!
Location
This poem marks the spot
Where a better poem should be
But this was all I got
For April twenty three.
Robin Amelia Morris
Pressure!!!
heehee!!
Captivity
If you are tormented at night by the thought of zoo animals, battery-farm chickens, chained dogs crazed with dog-loneliness, Mr. Lee, unvisited in his hospice bed, 12 year old Rose, tethered with a cable-tie, Michael, 9 years on death row, Hana and Antonie, kidnapped in Pakistan; go to the window and open it because you can, talk to the night, the night will reward you, open a door and walk through it, turn on a faucet, watch water splash into the sink. Your mind is a jailor and you have Stockholm syndrome, calm it with its secret name, the name you whispered as a child, the name written into the whorls of your skin. Try to believe you are lucky.
Rebrog PAD Location poem. 4/23/2014
Location, Location, Location
There is an orchard
that I planted
at 6045 Hyland Way
in Penngrove, California,
in the back yard of our first home,
over the septic field.
I bought those young trees,
one at a time,
for $4.95 apiece,
during 1975,
a time when we had little,
and when their fruits would sustain us.
Part of me remains in those trees,
part of them remain in me.
Vulnerable
One fine day
I discovered a retreat,
Away from the haunts of
Reality,
I usually visited it at night
When tears rolled down
My eyes,
In the torment and memories
Of agony,
It gave freedom to my
Smothering light,
An escape it was-
With an infinite playground
To make those sandcastles
I dreamt,
It gave me the delusion of
Reaching those elusive shores of
Contentment,
I knew it was wrong
To stay there as I
Fed on it, but
It bribed me with soothing words,
Eliminating away all my fleeing thoughts,
Now as I go deeper into
This black hole of deception,
It becomes more difficult to
Stand without leaning
Onto it
Location is French for rental, home or car etc. so my poem is my location is my home.
Propped up on piles of pillows
covered with cozy quilts,
laptop poised for action
is my favourite location
in our location
which is located
in a calm rural location,
Perfection.
You Are My Home
The pillows sit on top of each other
Your sink is almost empty
Your side of the bed sits empty too
Each night I go to sleep with the
phone near my head in case you
call me and wake me in the
morning
Everything waits for you
as if all of us were in limbo
a sense of absence fills
the place and we all know
you are missing and there
is imbalance
You are not here in body
for there is another place
where you live now
It is sterile and spare
but it is your home now
among the tubes delivering
medicine to you keeping
you there and I want to
crawl into that bed and
have your arms around me
though you are weak now
and it would be me holding
you and then I would be
home and find the missing
piece of my life
for you are my home and
I will plant myself where you
are
Meeting In Coles
Her chair looks heavy and solid,
though it glides quietly
through the Pension Day crowds.
“Does this make life easier?” I ask.
“Yes, and quicker.
If I walk, even with the trolley,
it can take hours.
Anyway, how are you?”
“Not too bad,” I say,
“All things considered.”
She laughs and splutters.”Yes,
that about says it here, too.”
A sweep of her arm takes in
the chair and the pile of shopping.
She’s trying to help her husband
load it on the checkout tray.
The store radio doesn’t just hum,
it roars. Trolleys around us clatter.
A child squeals incessantly.
The fluorescents glare.
“Take that kid home,”
she says sotto voce, and to me,
“Don’t you think that radio noise
is much too loud? I keep telling them.”
The one trouble with the chair,
she confides, is it won’t fit in the car.
“We have to take the maxi taxi, and
they won’t park outside our house.
“Poor old Patrick has to take
all the shopping across the road
and then up our front steps.” How old
is Patrick now, I wonder. I don’t enquire.
“Are you online?” I ask. “Think about
Coles’ delivery service. I used to use it
when Andrew was alive.” My mind goes back
to hauling his walker in and out of the car.
“I will!” she promises, and I don’t add,
“Then you’ll be that little bit more
house-bound.” I know, and she knows,
there are no easy choices.
MAGNOLIA
Cocooned by chestnut brick
with matching mortar, spread
by skillful hand and trowel
a hundred years ago,
I sit and peel a piece
of unwanted paint
from the cement caps
that were never meant
for painting.
Privacy abounds here
with Magnolia, just as old,
an arm’s length away.
Magnolia who adorns
her lilac dress,
at first so delicate and pure,
fragrant,
a debutante,
a natural yet brief
beauty.
Some years she sheds,
a slow striptease,
unbuttoning
a single petal at a time
when light, spring breezes
catch her blushing,
and her flowers drift
gracefully to the
ground.
Other years,
in one fell swoop,
her glorious attire is snatched
away in a single storm,
so violent its path
she’s left drained of
color, naked even of
green flesh leaves
ripped from her bark
and left in a heap of
perfumed sludge at her feet.
Her branches—
whether bare
or bearing buds
or in full bloom—
her branches hover,
by the light of sun
or streetlamp,
casting shadows on
step and stoop,
where I—
when not chipping
at the unwanted paint—
sit with paper,
white and bright,
filled with scrawling ink
and her reflected maze
of twigs and boughs.
Even now
in the middle of the
night
with the song
of soft rain
and wind chimes,
especially
now,
in the middle of the
night,
on the cusp of
rebirth,
there is no other
place that
brings me peace
like sitting on my
porch, with pen,
secluded and embraced
by Magnolia.
Morpheus rising
I burrow into place
next to you
beneath the billows
of a down comforter
smelling of crisp sunlight
from the clothesline.
Cozying up,
I close my eyes,
and lean against
your chest,
a mountain
with your heart inside,
drum calling
the spirits of the ancestors
to watch over us,
two sleeping children,
claiming peace
amidst the din
of world calamity.
Overlaying the rhythm
of your heartbeat,
your breath rises and sinks,
a jazz brush raking
in steady time
as we swing
into slumber,
my heart’s rhythm
slowing to match
your calm.
I am content
as a cat
curled atop
clean linen
in a
laundry basket.
PAD Day 23
Location Haiku
by Sandy McCulloch
Winter locked white
Gives way to summer grasses
Alaskan tundra
Looking Back
You say we cannot move forward
until we look back.
But all I see is a forest of barren trees.
And the bird who once whispered
in my curious ear no longer sings.
The silence a bleak reminder–
there is nothing for me here.
There never was.
Chi Holder
April 23, 2014
Prompt: Location
A stone wall beside the barn.
It held a bank of earth in place.
Was a cliff to my nine year old self.
Under a crab apple’s shade.
Facing west to end of day.
Afternoons.
Quiet.
A place to sit.
Legs dangling over.
Our cat would always find me.
It was our place.
For purring
And breathing in sync.
Warm fur and warm skin
In front of sinking sun.
~ miaokuancha
The Kitchen At Midnight
The clock on the stove
runs two minutes slow
In one way it’s still today,
yet tomorrow all the same
The cat sits on the counter,
begging for a treat
Meow. Meow. Purrr. Purrr.
Where have you been?
Drip. Drip. Splat. Whap.
The faucet is still broken
The fridge hums and
makes a weird click
Whirrr. Whirrr. Plick. Plick.
Bandmate to the faucet?
Garlic rice hangs in the air,
the skillet was left in the sink
A glass of water, two Advil
I should really be asleep
Late night wind hits the screen
Whack. Whack. Thwap. Smack.
I should have worn socks,
the tile is much too cold
Sniff. Sniff. Click. Clack.
The dog’s nails need a trim
He stares with a quizzical face,
Why are you up so late?
- – -
C.B. Wentworth
Re-Routing the Wheel
Federal Communications Commission
Chairman Tom Wheeler
has proposed new
net neutrality rules
meaning that broadband
network owners
would be allowed to sell
an exclusive high-speed
toll road
to whichever content providers
want it
and can afford it.
Wheeler is a Democrat
who says he is committed
to an open Internet
but open and free
is still a “pipe dream”
albeit with fewer and fewer
cumulonimbus clouds
barring the now
prehistoric metaphorical
superhighway Vine
from being swung upon
by the so-called
have-nots
who still have to rely
on their sweet old
Insta-Gram to snail-mail
their selfies to.
The Internet in theory
gives the privilege
of being in a place
called Nowhere
and you are a person
in a specific place on Earth
repping your particular location
while being granted
the inherent trust
of being just another Greek-prefixed
byte in the stream.
Despite that rather Snappy-Chatty tune
a trustworthy little birdie
may have innocently Tweeted
through the Glass
that stream probably will never
“trickle down”.
Forgot to post title for Day 23:
Where My Heart Is
Yes, enough said! Very nice, Karen!
The Letter
inspired by Sarah Kay’s “Postcards”
Somewhere, there is a letter
with your name on it.
Someone has pulled out their stationary,
the one with perfectly frayed edges
and an engraved letterhead, dipped their fingers
into ink and written their heart all over the page.
Stamped with their tongue
and carried with their wrists,
they let it go out their toes
after twelve trips to the post office.
You will not receive it.
They will intercept it, say it looks
too careful, too heavy-handed,
like there might be an explosion inside.
He will call you weeks later.
He has avoided this.
The letters were meant to keep
his head from running into your voice,
keep him inside his skin,
but I had to know if you got it.
You have practiced forgetting.
In rehearsal, this is easy,
but now, his voice, strange and cheap,
is pushing the sack of marbles
you don’t talk about
into the base of your throat.
No one knows how you tried to fit
them all in your mouth,
how you could swallow only
liquids for months after the choke –
ripping and swollen, all blood.
They’d only laugh.
He doesn’t get to touch you like this.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
The click is louder than you remember,
the house, damper,
the washer and dryer, heaving:
this is all you have left.
Day 23
4-23-2014
Write a location poem.
My heart is located in my
chest, at least it was when
last I looked; but wait, I can’t
look into my chest, can I?
Something beats there, inside
me, sometimes so thunderous
as if it wants to escape in fright,
take flight from life’s danger.
Sometimes that pulse of life feels
fluttery, a joy I want to stroke as if
butterflies dwell inside, overcome
by elixirs of kiss or book or family.
My heart is located in my chest,
my soul is in my body, and my
spirit responds to the Spirit of
God, all three possessed, forever.
Memories
I remember, as a girl in the African heat
there were
infinite swims in our pool and
in the waves of the two bordering seas
finding pansy shells on rockless white beaches and
climbing up and down canyons in the unforgiving sun;
riding ponies down never-ending green meadows
and in deserted grey river beds,
collecting precious sparkling stones;
diving into dark water holes of ancient rock arms
and in the deserts,
jumping down yellow sand dunes to my own inner tune;
Being almost bitten, when feeding monkeys at Victoria Falls,
watching elephants, giraffes, wildebeests, and graceful sprinboks,
lions on their hunt, hippos yawning wide, hyenas on their prowl
and the silver silhouette of flamingos shimmering in the wet twilight of the shoreline.
The endless wonders of nature
left us feeling blessed,
taught us humbleness and awe;
instilled pride and responsibility.
In this unmatched beauty, Apartheid made no sense
“Whites Only” signs kept us aware
that this was not Eden
that beauty could be deceiving and unjust
that perfection is impossible in life
and that some always have to suffer.
The bright and clear colors of locals,
their marvelous songs, and stunning dances
showed courage, purity, harmony, and strength
–despite everything else.
They taught us to be brave, to dare,
and to not mind being different and stand out
in a world where everything is connected and linked.
We moved far north,
when my parents split.
People there liked quiet, refused to talk,
and it was always cold.
They all wore black, never smiled,
and didn’t like standing out.
They did not sing, hated colors, the light, and the drums;
their tone was harsh, their movements rough.
There was no harmony, and nature’s beauty was cut
into small fenced pieces that invited no one.
Like in prisons they lived one by one.
So I moved away to find colors and fun
to see nature, appreciate beauty, and meet everyone!
To learn new things, to evolve, and to dance
to live, not fear, and to speak freely and loud
and to enjoy life inside and out.
©Uta Raina, April 2014
I Know a Place
Troy.
A weight,
hidden, dense.
All my secrets
kept. Long afternoons,
long
bike rides.
Books read, hills
climbed. My bully /
my friend at my side.
Jean –
taller,
stronger, hard –
she knew things I
avoided knowing.
Her
story
twists around
mine. But it’s time
to let myself go, leave
her
alone.
Walk away
from her story
learn to tell my own.
Jean,
is your
memory
shaded purple
and grey, same as mine?
You will find me
on the screen
by midnight
Scrawled out from a quill
on ancient papyrus
Dead words
silenced by time
Reshaped concepts
that live in a mind.
Beige is the color of non-decision
Our bedroom could be any color
A green wall for verdure renewed
One yellow to mourn our old ways
Decorum is not the same as decorate
After dinner we turn to stone again
Our path doesn’t end in yes anymore
Beige is the color of non-decision
The Bottom Line
A nightclub for the younger set,
a perfect venue, was born.
They called it, The Bottom Line,
and lines did form all along
Fourth Street to get in.
Tables and chairs, food and drink,
sheer intimacy with performing
musicians in a space accessible
to all. From folk to rock, they all
flocked to The Bottom Line.
Bonnie Raitt’s flaming hair shook
as her fingers flew on the bottle-
neck guitar, her bluesy voice
vibrating. Early punkers played
at the start of their careers–
Television, The Ramones, and Patti
Smith in gray t-shirt reciting
poems, spitting on the floor,
her voice raw, howling, electric.
Alas, 15 W. Fourth Street
now houses students from NYU
who never knew.
April: Skagit Valley Tulip Fields
I covet the Salmon Parrots
preening in the unreliable April sun.
I want the orange-robed
Oriental Splendor with its outrageous
red stripes. Why not bring home
Abu Hassan, all mahogany and gold,
off the steppes of Turkey?
And, yes, I love the scarlet floozies
that throw open their petals
to reveal their black hearts.
Late Morning in Bed
from the bay window
I stare at a cloud-studded sky
at palm trees standing still–
no breeze to sway their fronds
I will remain in bed until
the palm trees sway,
lie here even if it takes all day
lie here because I can make
no sense of Mom’s sudden
passing and why the world
keeps spinning unaware
Locus of Regret
I’d go back a decade and a half to the sweltering
city parking lot
where he stepped from the store’s cool convenience
into the glaring
midday sun clutching his meal, where he shifted
in countless layers
of filth and clothing, lowered himself to sizzling
pavement, tenderly peeled
clear plastic, licked dry lips, unfolded, flattened,
tore waxen paper
expecting something other than unyielding kernels
and the hard truth.
Sara Ramsdell
WHOSE WHO
Where do you go
When you sleep
When you dream
At night
Where does that inner
Self live and exist during
That time
Yet always gets back
To you
To wake you up to
Resume your outer
Life
And where are you
While this is going on
You sleep in one world
And wake in another
But whose who and
Who is the real you
The one whose asleep
Or the ones whose
Out in the inner world
Day 23
Are we there yet? Asked the girl.
Of course, answered the adult.
We are here. It is where we have always been,
And always will be.
Are we there yet? Asked the adult,
Who had already been to so many
Here’s and there’s. It seemed to make no more difference.
Here is always and only here.
There is always and only there.
Are we there yet? Asked the child
With eagerness
Are we there yet? Asked the adult
With weariness.
The answer floating
In the exact middle
Between here and there.
Near the Border
I have seen nothing but clouds for three weeks
through the rain spattered panes
a world of storm battered trees and wet matted grass
Spring chased winter into the woods behind the house
but not far enough for it clings
hard to the woodshed and nestles in
all the north facing corners dense with its chill
keeping bulbs at bay and birds close to their nests
and I, eager to rake winter’s detritus from the herb garden
know it is too early to uncover the tender shoots
testing the waters, sending out tendrils
of green from beneath their leaf blankets
in the hopes that sunshine will reach this northernmost locale
beside the mountains that loom with indifference
beyond the windy kiss of spring
Four Other States
It can’t be coincidence
that Ohio looks like home plate
on damn near every map.
Four other states have had
their hooks in him for
one reason or another and
all four talk in hushed tones
about the one who got away,
about the one who sits in the dark
and has no qualms about
letting loose his dull and brittle
histories upon the world.
They do not commiserate
with each other;
they refuse to commission
a canvas of maybe.
They cannot vandalize
that which did not happen.
They cannot enter a
backwards K on the scorecard.
ANYWHERE BUT HERE
G. Smith
——————————————–
Growing up we had to be
Anywhere but here;
They rolled the sidewalks up each night by nine.
The bright lights of the city seemed
A million miles away,
And like the stars we saw how they would shine, shine, shine;
And like the stars we saw how they would shine.
Graduation, we took off for
Anywhere but here;
We didn’t have a clue what we would find.
Some went to college, or went to work;
Some went to see the world;
We couldn’t wait to cut those ties that bind, bind, bind;
We couldn’t wait to cut those ties that bind.
Anywhere but here,
Is where we had to be,
Anywhere but here,
We thought we would be free.
Anywhere but here,
With no-one else but you,
Anywhere but here,
Is where I headed to.
I guess you’d say we all grew up,
Anywhere but here.
And it seems I’ve wound up back among these pines.
I sit and watch the fireflies,
As the daylight disappears,
Or skip rocks on the river with a jug of homemade wine, wine, wine;
Or skip rocks on the river with a jug of homemade wine.
More than once I’ve felt like I should be singing your poem. I like that!
Home
this house
is bigger newer
perfect place
to raise a family
we said unbeknownst
to us a new tenant
had also set up
house inside me
two weeks before
we’d even passed
through the door
funny how any
finite space
becomes smaller
time shorter
as we grow
older we take
our bodies with us
poorly built
or well-maintained
wherever we go
as long as we live
even when we
dwell within another
it’s the house
we live in
for the rest
of our lives
regardless
of location
or condition
(c) Courtney O’Banion Smith
I really like this.
Here is my Location Poem for day 23
Main Event
International
Stars come to Tampa Bay for
Bollywood Oscars
By Denise Fletcher Copyright © 2014
The one I meant to post this morning is still on my desktop at work. Til tomorrow, here’s another:
Location, Location, Location
Buy lakefront property, the agent quipped,
‘Cause they ain’t making any more of it!
He knew he’d said it hundreds of times,
part of his repertoire, squiring newcomers
around town, priding himself on matching
the right home site to the buyers he drove
around. He knew when to show fixer-uppers—
cream puffs, he called them—and when
to steer them toward cookie cutter houses
in safer neighborhoods with good schools,
and no crime. He knew when to talk resale
value, when to paint a picture of permanence.
Other men might prefer eighteen holes of golf
on Saturday. He’d rather spend his time
driving toward the outskirts. The lake drew
him the way the moon drew the tide.
Walking toward the shoreline, he’d help them
see themselves, fishing pole in hand on lazy
days, or sleeping with the windows up,
the sound of waves lapping at the seawall
lulling them into pleasant dreams. Never
did he let them know that when the deed
was signed, titled transferred, the moving
van unloading in their drive, he went home
to a third floor walkup rental with a view
of the old abandoned Sinclair station
across the street, trains rumbling all night
just on the other side of the rotting fence.
The Old Lighthouse
When my aunt died suddenly
from a brain aneurysm
the family gathered
in her small Washington Heights apartment
for the traditional squabbling over things:
Jewelry — “I’ve always loved that ring.”
Clothes — “She promised that coat to me.”
Books — “You know that one is my favorite.”
But on the wall was a framed photo
she had shot in black and white
of the old lighthouse which stood sentinel
under the George Washington Bridge
a few blocks from where we lived as children,
a place where we had played, hidden, told secrets.
I remembered my father taking us there
and borrowing a kid’s skateboard
as if he were still young and laying his elbow open
as my mother chided him for playing.
My sisters would take me and our dog
to walk along the train tracks, cut down
to the Hudson, sitting in the shadow of the
lighthouse, talking of what-ifs.
A silent emblem of our lost childhood,
symbol of the love of a woman who understood
what real treasures are.
This is beautiful and emotive…thank you for bringing us here.
Reflections
I await the comfort found in your arrival.
This structure stands, here for our going
and it’s present for our coming in,
this space embraces our family;
it’s shelter, a roof keeping us dry.
It’s raining outside and I think of you
returning – eyes shining as they always do;
returning and causing our home to be home.
Copyright © Hannah Gosselin 2014
Beautiful, Hannah.
So lovely!
Mired In Muck
Christened the Writers’ Underground
by a teacher with stars in her eyes
who visualized young adults
mulling over the works of the masters,
engaged in civilized conversation,
deep in thought, pondering precise language,
cascading words into prose on paper,
the basement classroom in reality
simply a sanctuary for adolescents
who revel in video game glory and
cast away Gatsby, Romeo, and Jane Eyre
as worthless characters in irrelevant writings.
Thirteen steps underground sets the scene for students
mired in the muck of middle school,
meandering through the mundane world of an English classroom
situated out of sight of the fountain water cooler,
around the corner from the bathroom,
down-wind of the principal’s office
one hundred twenty seconds from the cafeteria.
In the Writers’ Underground
heat generates, thermal energy rises,
hormones rage a war against elementary rules and regulations,
media is social, prized possessions electronic,
yet students learn to journal emotions,
appreciate well-written words,
perceive occasional sunbeams through the window
as a path beyond the muck of middle school
to a place on higher ground.
Lorraine Caramanna
There’s hope….nicely penned.
Love this, Lorraine. I might have once been saved by such a place. I hope there are always these secret worlds for creative souled kids.
Thank you, Hannah and De, for stopping to read my work and taking to time to comment.
Anything Anonymous
Can’t find it unless you feel for
it fashion your paper map
into an airplane send it
to the waste bin
by the kitchen(bar)(nursery)(casino) door
leave without looking back
Used to take my coffee black
afraid of the way sugar
crumbled
on my tongue things fall
apart
afraid of that too and bills
I couldn’t pay to save my life
so should I throw away money
instead? Smash
the glass the credit
cards with a last ticket
with a scar
Found out where the wild things are
they aren’t men
or girls
they are men and girls pretending
to be airplanes, small planes, old
planes nosing around the
smoky room, all in holding patterns
until we can all wing it
if not sweeten it
take your creamer with the coffee
feel your way to a folding chair.
I like the voice in this, Cameron, and the AA feel of the ending. There’s an inner helplessness here that is so touching.
By The Lake
by Ashley Marie Egan
Meet me down by the lake
where we spent our summer days
discovering how to make each other shake
under the trees that never phase.
At our bed beside the shoreline,
where the water always feels sublime.
Will you return to our little slice of paradise,
or will our place become another sacrifice?
746 5th Street
Over in #3, a single mom
and two kids—loud, cranky, always
slamming doors and rushing. I met her
one night when the lights went out—
I offered a spare flashlight, but she had candles
somewhere.
Up in #2, a family, young, that moved in
the day before I did.
The toddler sons have only
two settings: dead
or juggernaut—
they favor hurdling through my atmosphere,
just out of reach.
But their mother bakes apple
pies for me to apologize
for the daily cosmic thunderstorms.
I am nestled in #4
with my second bedroom
ready for imagined guests—
I bring down the average
occupancy, give the landlord
some breathing room—less
laundry, less showers—
I am the balance.
And up in #1, well,
someone lives there—
I see the evidence—lights
turned on, a car parked
that is then gone—
but I’ve never seen or met them
(I always suppose there are two, but maybe
just one, or three, I couldn’t say).
It is as if they are the subconscious
while 2 and 3 are flailing limbs
and I am the steady core.
And that makes me wonder
what they might influence
the rest of us to do next—or worse,
what they’ve already convinced us
to do without our
knowing it.
–Sara Doyle
Vivid portrait. I can taste the building’s tenants.
thank you!
This cracked me up, Sara:
“The toddler sons have only
two settings: dead
or juggernaut”
Great portraits, all. Well done.
Thanks
It’s my daily life, and I either had to find the humor in it or go crazy, so I went with humor!
That was my son as a toddler (well PAST toddlerhood actually) and what a perfect way to put it.
I love the whole thought behind this poem and how you carried it out.
thanks!
Saharas
When I thought you were simple, you proved I was.
When I thought you were landlocked, deserted,
I was the one uncultured – untraveled
in your nations – and now
I owe you a visit.
really enjoyed this one!
Re-location
I thought to re-locate myself, sell the house,
move to a foreign country farther south but I lost
the path among the cacti and traveler palms
of longing. All the accumulation of a long,
acquisitive life threatens to crush me. The books,
the clothes, the furniture, the family artifacts
are stacked before me like mountains of lies.
I have hid in those books so long I am
like a dry page about to crumble into disconnected
words. Yesterday, I rounded a corner, ran into myself,
said “Excuse me,” and then moved on, not recognizing
the face among the shadows and faint music, among
the flux and shift of distant flutes. Once, I nearly
dislocated my aura searching for a place to really live.
I have become pure motion, streaming like a lava flow
that eats whole villages. Nothing can equal that.
It is time to return to myself. The robotic voice
announces “your location is on the left.” I doubt
her honesty but I’m willing to take a chance.
Carole
Powerful metaphors and images.
Thanks, James, both for reading and for commenting.
nicely done–love the dislocated aura!
East Bay
You’re that “not far enough away” cousin.
The one that always gets into fights but
Still gets invited to Christmas dinner.
Gritty, with a passion -
Where sidewalks are paved with
Melted gum, piss and cigarette butts.
Land of brownfields – Hell, you
Drained the salt marshes and
Covered your once flowing creeks.
You built highways though
Folks never leave and
Nobody bothers dropping by.
Sparring in your concrete coliseum,
You bleed silver and black – You
Forgotten warriors.
But, at times, you shine,
Like a yellow peace sign in sunlight.
Like a tomboy at prom.
People may leave their hearts and
Wallets in San Fran.
Oakland – you’ve got their guts.
The world is yours to conquer, if
You want it. One piece of advice – you
Might want to set your alarm clock before Noon.
Nice tribute to the East Bay.
“Location Tending”
The letter dropped when you tipped down the book,
advising you to “pull but not too hard,”
the author being genius or a kook,
“One yank, you could unravel your back yard.”
Signed, Great Aunt Liz. Outside you heave a clot
of grass that links up to another tuft,
and soon you’re on your knees to weed a plot.
Voila! a four-square potager that’s stuffed
with peppers, carrots, leeks and roses. Sow
zucchini for the fall, in spring snip chives.
Then tuck your menu in the family bible, know
the page will one day flutter down, survive
is written with the soil though cultivate
a memory to pass. It’s time to eat.
–Barb Peters
This is beautifully intriguing, Barb.
Thanks for your comment, De.
Carolina Baby
Sometimes,
I just want to go back home.
I’d have to pick one though,
my roots are spread out
all over the state.
The homes aren’t there anymore,
of course.
Things aren’t the same.
People have grown up,
moved on
and passed away.
The towns have changed
torn down and rebuilt.
It’s just a pang
I get with the fond memories.
The bad ones?
Well, I try to forget.
I try…
They say home is where the heart is
and my heart is also
all over the place.
We were all together for a time,
then left for life
to live -
to make new memories.
I had to displace myself,
like the rest,
to learn
to make my own home
from scratch,
with regrets and hopes,
for the tomorrows
come todays
and maybe to someday
have places
to go back to.
Locate
Fix your position,
old school,
with the sun
and the stars.
Step outside;
leave the cell phone,
the laptop, the tablet
behind and sit.
Face any direction
you wish.
Feel the sun
on your face.
Watch the clouds roll in,
feel the first drops
of rain.
Stay until the light fades,
wait for the first stars,
for the moon to rise.
Watch it sail
and set.
Raise your head now and again,
sniff the wind.
Now you know
exactly where you are.
Oh, Amen, Eben. This is so true, for me.
“In My Heart”
By: Tuere Allwood
The dialogue began simply.
How was your day?
Good, Papito. How was yours?
I can’t even recall how we began to fuss.
I only remember my initial silence,
fear that my response would push us apart.
My prime concern
was how to keep you in my heart.
I could hear the hurt in your voice,
the restraint echoed behind your tone.
I could feel the frustration steaming my blood,
the aggravated tremble in my throat.
And as you questioned me skillfully,
used reason like an art,
it struck me
why you dwell in my heart.
You have to stop being so stubborn,
you said. But it came out like a plea.
Then I remembered that you love me.
My stance turned limp, volume softened.
I called your name, you whispered mine.
We both stayed silent, as I was at the start,
so that I’d remain in your soul,
and you in my heart.
Where
are you? Because my heart
wants to know,
and time and miles
seem to mean little
to this particular trope. Or
is it my heart? For my chest
feels empty and maybe
my heart has been lost,
and you have it?
Where
are you? For I
hear your voice in my head,
I see your pale calm eyes,
I feel your face in my hands
and still something’s missing,
another great, gaping hole
and maybe it’s you
not in my arms,
and how can that be?
Where
are you? How can I
not know where you are,
when I know so clearly
where you’ve been,
and, dear God, when I
carry so much of you
around with me?
How could I have
possibly lost you?
My heart needs to know –
Where
are you?
by Cathy Dee
I enjoyed your poem, Cathy, very nice! Great questions too!
the poem of -al
Imagine if you will,
the prompt given today
to end in al, a surprise to all
Our initials are al, there is hers
and then there is mine
two separate names-
I have nothing to hide
just wish to share
to those who care
The world sees me as one
our friends see us as two
two names two personalities
We are a medical marvel
perhaps more than that
writing about the psychological
So many emotions
so little time
we write poetry
sometimes it rhymes.
Do Not Disturb
You actually left me.
Reduced to distant memories.
Disgusted and repulsed
replaced love which used to be engulfed.
I’m all alone
now that you’ve gone.
And you don’t even care
to hear anything I have to share.
Without you I’m not any fun.
I miss the laughter of my Sun.
No matter how much I yell
no one hears me from my corner in hell.
Wrong Place, Right Time
I was downtown shopping
When my ship came in
At the wharf!
Just my luck, but that’s the way it runs
Why just last year
I was out with the girls
When my beau drove by the house
To get me – to go get hitched
Another time I was taking a bath
So I didn’t answer the door
It was only the Publisher’s Clearing House Guy
With my million dollars for life
And then there was the time
I didn’t get to the phone in time
And guess what, you’re right,
The dream trip of a life time
I can’t say I never win anything
Or that my luck runs south
But honestly, why am I always in the
Wrong place at the right time?!
Fun.
Guardian
Where is the angel of death
that slut that craven mistress of mischief
that stone-faced crooked-winged
valkyrie, armored vixen of our mortal
desire for life who lures us forward, forward
into inevitable nothingness, stealth,
silence, graves full of crumbled bones
we mistake for a savior’s offer of communion,
and we lie down holding your stolen smile,
your fake angelic promises, where at last
we can look over your frozen shoulders
and see stars burning still
Lovely dark images.
That is pretty deep. Wonderful illusions!
Nice!
thanks for the positive feedback on this one. I felt pretty good about it.
Saying Goodbye
by Elizabeth Weaver-Kreider
(farmpoem.wordpress.com)
Remember the day
you stood in the mud
at the edge of the bog
and watched the slow shiver
of the birches
reflected in the water,
how you saw
the faerie creature caught
there in the middle of the pool,
between the worlds
of visible and invisible,
how you waded out
into the muck to release her,
and saw–for the briefest of moments–
as she whisked out of sight,
the bright sun shining
through the door from the fields of Faerie?
I like it
Thank you!
An Encounter
When he first stepped off the elevator he
said, “Sorry”. I looked at him as I entered. Saw
the lit cigarette in his hand. Had thought him polite
until I inhaled. I coughed
trying to expel the nicotine, tar
arsenic, carbon monoxide, and almost 7000 other chemicals
clouding the air. I stopped
at the local deli to soothe my ire
with some sugary something or other when
more clouds of smoke slapped my face
blown out by more young men who looked
the brother in the elevator. And me. Alongside my rage
was a desire to hold all of them close
remind them of our ancestors who broke backs
picking that noxious weed
and shoo them away from the street corner missteps
that lead to cells
Ooh–I like this.
“Did us mean anything to you?”
I found your poem
“Did “us” mean anything to you?”
I guess after two years
you’re still thinking about her. I thought
you were past this. And
I thought I was past this
jealousy. I was wrong
because you refuse
to let me in. You keep your heart
shut by lock and key. Invite Only.
Occasionally, you’ll let me in
through the window
or look at me from the other side
of the door through your peep hole.
And we both press our palms
to the door pretending like we
feel something.
From my side,
All I feel is the cold
wooden block separating our hearts.
You keep me waiting for days
every time I come knocking.
Please, just let me in.
I know she built this wall for you,
but at some point you need
to get some air
and breathe.
Well said….
Driving Home
She looked at me and said
I found a lump
I will know more on Friday
And all I could think is what day is it
Today?
It’s two days from Friday
So I drove home empty,
No words to say
Just let her be okay.
“And all I could think is what day is it
Today?”
Perfect.
Thank you De, I appreciate the feedback!
IL PLEURE DANS MY COEUR day23location
by Jean Dubois
quelle est cette malheur qui pénètre mon coeur?
French Poet Paul Verlaine
described my heart in one quatrain
il pleur dans mon coeur
comme il pleut sur la ville
quelle est cette langeur
qui pénètre mon coeur?
pretty sharp, huh? describes my fears
with outer raindrops inner tears
oh you don’t read foreign stuff?
put your mind to it it’s not too tough
coeur is heart pleut is rain
pleur is weeping likely in vain
and now I’m going to ask it again
quelle est cette malheur que pénètre mon coeur?
Peut-être c’est le besoin de plus de pluie?
My Happy Place
My happy place is on that balcony
in Old San Juan where I sit
with postcards stacked
on one knee, head bent, finger
perched on a moving pen,
before the palomas drift
back to park benches,
before the other dwellers seek
company for their first coffees
and cigarettes and my mind collapses
into the black hole of the day,
where above me the sky roils
as yellow, blue, and white fight
for dominance until white gives way.
In Our Bed
Together we make a warm
quotation mark curving
to open or close
all we need to say.
Linda Voit
I loved your poem, Linda, nice job!
Nice.
Mmmmm. “quotation mark curving” This is cozy, sexy brilliance. Beautiful.
Absolutely brilliant!
By the riverbank
I sit in solitude
Airplanes lift into the air
Jet skis riders zip across waters
Bumble bees linger nearby buzzing around me
The river tides washes over the pebble stones
It is in this place that I found peace
Nice!
In The Garden
touching the earth
on hands and knees
reaching in
the dirt
A. Cele
isiZulu Lesson
Places in the Zulu language are often indicated by adding the prefix e- and the suffix -ini or -eni to a noun.
From this my mind imagines all kinds of places:
I consider ebuzeni
and find myself in the place of nakedness nothingness emptiness and poverty.
I imagine ekukhanyeni
and find myself In the place of light.
I ponder elambeni
and feel pangs in the place of hunger.
I discover ethembini linye
and find myself transported to the place of one hope.
I consider ethandeni
and find my heart in the place of love.
My Zulu speaking companion is quick to correct and offer other more expected grammatical options,
but it is of no use.
For I am sure these places exist
as I know that I have visited each.
A. Cele
Today’s poem developed in an interesting way: NaPoWriMo suggested writing a “homophonic translation” poem, in which you take a poem in a language you don’t know well, then “translate” it to English based on the sound and look of the words rather than their actual meaning. Looking for a location poem in another language, I found “Bruxelles” (Brussels) by Paul Verlaine, and then started to read the backstory of the sordid relationship between him and Arthur Rimbaud, his protégé and sometime-lover whom he shot in the hand during an ansinthe-fueled rage in Brussels. Fascinating story which could make for a more narrative poem, but reading about all that influenced my word choices here, I think.
Verlaine in Brussels (Simple Frescos)
The suite is verdant and rose
The columns and the ramps
Dance and damage all the lamps -
Quite violent brawlers we chose.
Lord, sir, the humble abide
To docile men, sense a glance.
The petty arbors sense crimes
You squelch your so-fabled chant.
Tryst, a penitent, self-effacement,
See appearances of autumn,
To my languorous revision,
Quiet burst, the air monotone.
“The last hike”
The cadence of our breath shifts as the wind
twists the silver birch branches, mocking
our efforts to scale the mountain highway
in the rain It was summer at the tree-line—
Blue violet warm with a driving heat that
scared the mosquitoes underground Twelve
thousand feet up and the sun is snapping
pictures of the snails we crush as we scrape
along the boulders slipping in the crushed rock.
Selah ladles the khaki-colored stones into
her pockets. She wants to design a mosaic
of her eyes when we get home They click like
maracas as she steps up the crowning rise
The lightning strikes twice.
I can’t remember the color.
I like this alot.
A Good Place by C. Lynn Shaffer
How long I have eaten
the spines of cactus,
conjured water from my eyes
to urge grass to grow
on all my little graves,
followed my own footsteps in relenting sand
to and from each unmarked mound,
feeding my regrets to the air
where the dead live,
every one of them a light inside
the glaring sun of my depression.
But now clouds move in,
a breeze stirs the landscape,
allowing me to forget their location.
The mirages I thought were ghosts
vanish.
It feels like rain.
Elderhostel Trip to the Art Museum
On the bus, we’re at the back, Mom and I,
pretzeling purse straps.
Through the window, naked forests
grow a peach fuzz of spring wildflowers -
it blurs to a brown smear when I face forward.
Heart notes of baby powder and wine waft
from ladies giggling behind us when we stop.
They say they are going to sleep
after all this wine.
Between the crack of the seats in front of us
a woman with hair to the ceiling and a lace shirt
opens her book on the Hoover Dam.
Mom tells me that she talks exactly like her dead aunt.
She reaches her chin over the seat to tell her so –
but instead discusses the weather.
The forest watches us – our heads,
little silver knots bobbing in the windows –
smearing past as a waterfall
of perfume, endings, and diesel.
Magnolia buds
drooping tadpoles by silk threads -
drip wet on our palms.
enjoyed this journey very much!
Thank you for saying so!
Among the Clouds
Among the clouds
I drift away
Soft into the spring sky.
All that surrounds
Is the peace
Within my glowing mind.
Bird’s melodic verses,
Sifted by distance
Are companions to my ears.
The warmth of the sun
Blankets my soul,
As the tangible disappears.
Suspended by draping moments
Encapsulated by their own passing,
My heart beats in pace with serenity.
And suddenly I’m aware.
I will have to descend once more,
To a world abrasively consuming.
©E.D. Allee
April, 2014
“Children’s Bedtime Stories”
I’m writing feverishly. The floorboards are creaking
all around me and the comforter is dusting my face like a
dream catcher gone awry. Nightmares
wrack my pen as I scratch away at these bare bones – the
tapping’s closer, closer. Click. These’ll do the trick, mother
always told me to bring truth to the light and that
honesty’s a pretty good policy. Oranges smells sweeter than
the big bad wolf, he’ll go away if I count to three. One.
Its three a.m., and I can’t get out from under the covers. I can feel
the wind dragging its nails down my spine, Two, through these thin
brick walls razing smaller and smaller all around me. The light’s
died out, and the footsteps are almost tangible now. I shut
my eyes. Three. I put the pen down, I take a deep breath and
whip off the covers to face the wolf.
I open my eyes.
-Jessenia Class
Hot, sweaty, bored,
Ready to die.
Schoolroom madness,
I want to cry.
Trapped in a classroom,
With no air to breathe.
Lucidity levels,
Are beginning to seethe.
Students croak,
One by one.
The teachers smile,
Their work is done.
The few who survive,
The torturous test.
Cry while their friends,
Are laid to rest.
–ShennonDoah
Powerful!
WALK RIGHT IN, SET RIGHT DOWN
on the concrete stoop, even on the sidewalk approaching it,
my shoulders drop their weight and steeping into the warm
boffice (bedroom office) into Stanley’s embrace, I go tender
as a toddler, 260-pound frame and 5 o’clock shadow no
obstacles to weeping at the loss of my favorite toy and
the taxed and tarnished love of mother. On the wall’s an
abstract picture, nearly cartoonish of two girls on a steep
wooded hillside. On the other wall, the altar with totems
everyone brought, including my pendant with the big, yellow
scorpion encased in acrylic. There’s a photo of me from
1967 among the other old and young faces. In that seat,
facing him, I cry, rage, shake, wash the old angers into—
where? Maybe that’s why the bougainvillea outside his
window is so emaciated. Maybe it’s not poor sunlight, but
the energetic shit Stanley eases out of me and all the
other desperate, beautiful characters who come and go.
—FangO
Ode to Japhy Ryder
Far from the Vans-slapped bustle
of hide & seek kids and so much
that makes them who we are,
and the glowing blue windows
of old suburbs,
the whoring light and glory of cities,
creeping softly beneath and beyond
twined chaparral,
walking calm like a shadow
grazing the night
blossomed heads of bougainvillea
shrugging from their neck-rest
at the chain-link fence entrenched
in irrigation, canopied
from the blood orange sun, tucked
like over-loved dogs in their owner’s beds
from time. . . for the day, nested
in small town stacks, and encased
within the musky yellowing pages,
a pale light looms.
Nothing sacred
and everything so, this is the space
where I met you.
(By: Marcus Christensen)
Peering out the soot-blackened window
I observe a wasp dipping and rising
around uneven tendrils of the
evergreen hedge. Oppressively hot
mid-afternoon July air shimmers
before my eyes. I long to let
waves of heat caress my skin,
enveloping my entire body.
I’d love to lean back into the arms
of my favorite black walnut tree,
listening to the lull of cicadas,
breathing deeply of jasmine –
the exotic, intoxicating scent
infusing my lungs. In my reverie,
I lift a hand to brush a few strands
of hair off my cheek, absently
grazing the white eyelet curtain
with embroidered white daisies.
My error realized seconds later,
when a girl about my age with
light brown hair and sun-kissed
skin turns panic-stricken eyes
to the four pane window where
I lurk. A chill grips my body,
virtually impaling me vertically
in the house from which I cannot
escape, when she utters
the horrifying word,
“Ghost!”
–ShennonDoah
“Wondering about the wandering mind”
Where do you travel when your mind wanders?
Is it close to home or far, far away?
Do you think about the past, the present, or the future?
Or perhaps some combination of all three?
What do the places look like in the crevices of your mind?
Are they dark and mysterious or a cheery place to go?
How can you find your way back?
Once you have traveled so deep to find your answers?
I travel far away,
Thinking about the future
Yet missing the past.
Longing for those I have lost
And waiting on the one I long to meet.
From the shores of Ireland, to the ancients of Egypt,
I am there- absorbing all it has to offer me.
I am there with my betrothed,
Someone who does not have a face yet,
But I know his heart- the other half of mine.
My concerns are for the present
And what the future will bring.
The way back cannot be found,
As I am constantly lost in my deep thoughts
Wandering in some other space, time and location.
By Jennifer M. Terry
April 23, 2014
PAD poem 23:
Stage Left
by Patrick J. Walsh
amber violet rose the lights
blink lackadaisically off and on
in that interval of murmur and dusk
as stage sits empty waiting
curtain gilded upholstery seats
antique heavy in dust
of decades of nights and
early morning hours bliss
prop and scene and actor pass
lightly via memoried air
in roles played proud
at highest arc of art
alone on ledge I lean stage left
outfitted in details of shows
that once shook this house
elevating spirits gentle and intense
tones notes laughter glowing
muted in filtered floating darkness
early evening early spring
the hall is full again
Great background for a poem, Patrick! Loved the images!
Some rich images here!
Thank you Janet — it recalls one of my favorite ‘haunts’ from the past, so it was a pleasure to write.
Thank you James — I appreciate your support!
Coordinates
I am weary of the long
-itudes and latitudes of this un
-quiet heart. I have taken her
car keys and her license and
removed all traces of travel
mags from the vicinity be
-cause apparently she
never learned to Never Eat
Shredded Wheat
(or Sour Watermelons,
or Soggy
Wheaties).
She’s pretty much flying
by the seat of her un
-ventricled pants at this
point and her contents – which
may or may not have shifted
during travel – have finally
thrown in the hand towel
and simply flown the coop,
spilling out somewhere west
(left)
of Albuquerque.
I am hoping to keep her north
(that’s up)
of the Equator until
she has time to catch her ever
-lovin’ beatin’ breath. She’s
kind of squishy, so if you know
where I might purchase a water
-proof carry-on
(carrion?)
bag, that matches my running
shoes, that would be somewhat
of a godsend.
.
I really like this. Thank you for posting it.
Fun poem.
so much fun!
The Eleven Point River
The burble of moving water fills the air
There is a quiet with the sounds of nature all around
The icy cold of water fed from deep springs
No sound of mankind to be heard
Unstoppable water moving ever toward the sea
Surrounded by unspoiled wilderness
Life fills the crisp clear water at all levels
A refuge for wildlife and man
Beautifully peaceful, Clark, wonderful!
Thank you! One of my favorite locations.
Beanie’s Backyard
Raindrops wet his face and hair
The sound of snapping branches
As strong winds push electric air
And Beanie takes his chances
“You must come in”
She calls to him
But he can see no harm
He loves the rain upon his skin
And this is his first storm
One more dash around the yard
He jumps in every puddle
Birds have gathered in the trees
He likes the way they’ve huddled
In between the clouds up high
A sight he’s never seen;
A road to follow in the sky
Of blue and red and green
He points and stares in wonder
At nature’s magic show
He yearns to brave the thunder
And follow where it goes
Perhaps when monsoon comes again
and clouds are thick as lard
He will find the rainbow’s end
is Beanie’s own backyard.
diedre Knight
Pretty.
Faded
My boots sank into undisturbed memory, and
as my fingers touched stone, I felt history
a bared thread wafting in the elements,
but always silent…
this place stood for a faded textile of
dreams bled onto a canvas of cruel fiction, but
the unspoken mysteries of how the mountains lie,
where the rivers flow and stretch until they
yawn into the sea, all of this conspired to a power
grasped in mortal hands – and now, those hands
are dust sprinkled over a nameless legacy…
this crumbling ruin has enigma woven into its stone,
in the vines that creep inexorably to swallow it whole,
the stark lines where magnificent arches once stood
proudly surveying a land encumbered with life—
now a shattered mirror reflecting an empty sky.
April 23, 2014
By: Lucy K. Melocco
A Final Resting Place
My father asks if I want to see the niche
In the mausoleum wall where his ashes will
Reside. I do, since I imagine safety
Deposit boxes locked away behind a vault.
Years ago he said he’d donate his cadaver
To science. I imagined him carved apart
On a metal slab. Perhaps it was the time
Between his marriages when he lay down
Alone. It’s hard to know. I like that more
Than the horror of a wall of niches
That one day, thankfully, must fall to dust, fertile
Ashes freed at last to feed some wanton
Seed somewhere. Or is the small confines
Of darkness boxes bring? The casket closed
Over my mother, and we lowered it
Into a concrete shell, a box within a box,
Covered them and buried her. I stood
On the hillside in the rain and swore
No box of any kind for me. Burn me
If you must and throw me to the wind,
But know I’d rather you lay me out
Below the sky and let the vultures come
To feast. Let them pick me to the bone
That some part of me takes wing and flies.
A tapestry in words, beautiful.
agreed.
Interesting thoughts the way through. Love the ending stanza.
love the ending–beautiful!
The spot
I was waiting on the edge of a journey,
when you came up to me to talk—
there was that awkward pause and I just had
to smile at that spot we never quite got to,
a timeline never started, a sequence incomplete:
we’ve got time, but you haven’t the courage to speak;
after that I was wandering nearer a place that fed me,
with new connections on arrival almost an anomaly,
but all that hunger eventually bled me dry, and
I had to find a spot alone where I could just exist
without the incessant leap to leap to catch the ledge—
I wanted a spot of quiet, where not even you
could come after me with the never said hanging
like a tantalizing honey string of meaning—
I’m supposed to bite, but I never could fathom why,
when my feet will take me away before long again,
and your silence has by far not convinced me;
but you persisted, in a way, so we took a walk in
the park, and with the darkness descending, my steps
grew lighter, eyes sparkling with the delight
of midnight plunders ahead: schemes to unveil,
plots to unmask all the secrets of what you are until
we arrive at that spot, just at the bottom of the hill—
there, the vertigo of exhaustion dulled my vexation,
and I thought for a moment you would step
over the barrier to that place your eyes beg me to go,
but never quite managed to bring yourself to it so far;
now we take the leap, I think, with something as
innocent as a dance in the moonlight—
a suspect move that screams of those masked desires,
but my attention shifts easily from you to a flicker
just at the edge of my vision…
you mock me that I saw a fairy, but just as I saw it,
there was a moment inside your smiles,
untarnished by your intentions, a reflection of light
in your deep eyes that made me shiver—
that was convincing enough, and I knew that
I was suddenly caught, basking in the symmetry of
our merging minds melting into a delightful geometry;
there is a light around us, but thoughts grow difficult,
displaced by just a hair – and in love for the minutes
you spun me around, laughing, we broke free finally:
a lurching step back to the spot where we had been…
…it was a time until we realized that an age had
passed in those few moments – we grew distant,
just as I had predicted, but the difference
is that now we shared a bond of knowing:
that spot was the place we loved, a place where
years were lost to us, years we could have spent as
true companions – now, the place where we
took away from each other something precious
and our dalliance cost us so much – but who
could have thought that a single spot
would take us such a distance, just to be one
for a single, brave moment…
April 23, 2014
By: Lucy K. Melocco
Grief or Landscape
In Alaska, I do not think of it anymore. Vast
Space can hold this broken heart, can hold
A hundred thousand rivers, lush with lupine,
The reaching fingers of tributaries, pebble-heavy.
The Great Land can hold small prayers
As they make their way up creeks, to rest in pools
Where they bathe, as though in a mother’s womb
Before swimming, brief lights in the water’s glint,
Against the hard white current,
Hurtling themselves to the sky.
Carpe diem!
THE RAMBLE
It was a sunnycool autumn day when I wandered
the Ramble in October of 2010. I wound up in
the 80s, planned to hit the Guggenheim, which I’d
wanted to visit ever since I took that art history
class my senior year when I sat between Emily
and sad Maria. But everything in the museum was
dead, just a bunch of paintings and tourists and
a couple of potheads giggling at these famous
pieces by Kandinsky and Pollack and Picasso
and other celebrity artists. But I wanted a hot dog
and to get back to that perfect day where I could
shoot birds with my Nikon, and the leaves all
changing colors in a way they never do in Austin.
I said it was a cool day and I suppose it was, but
I’m not from New York, so what do I know? Maybe
it was hot. And so out onto 5th and back across the
park to the Upper West Side. I hoofed it to Columbus,
loving the city, loving the day, the weather, the birds,
loving you, travelworking in some cubefarm in Midtown
on this beautiful day. I skipped the Natural History
Museum since you’d want to do that and someday
I bet we will, and we’ll bring our son who was with you
that day too even if we didn’t know it. Didn’t know it
at the time, it wasn’t just the two of us anymore.
Awww I love this!!
A lovely ramble, I must say.
Nice! Thanks for the ramble.
#382, Burlington, NJ
The shades are pulled down, masking
the heavy glare of sun. I am a statue
in front of a machine – scan, scan.
Sometimes, a voice raises over a grumble,
actually makes eye contact with me.
Sometimes I manage to lift my head
and pretend I care – about what they
buy, about their annoying children.
It goes on and on – scan, scan, bag.
This is not where I should be.
If the wind would die to a faint shrug,
I could be on a bench, staring out into
the waves of the creek, my fingers -
tapping, tapping, erase, erase. tap.
I check my phone for the weather, it
shows a large cloud and tells me its
dreary. It almost sounds like a joke.
I am still here and the faces start to
blend together. I hear the same words
over and over – Marlboro, Newport
Just the coffee.
This place is Hotel california,
it is my own event horizon.
I love this–there’s just something great about the pace and being inside our own heads, and I especially love the line “if the wind would die to a faint shrug”.
RELOCATION
Where am I
and where will I be?
Is it a place
where echoes resonate,
where silence shouts,
where I can be free?
Where are you
and where will you be?
Is it a place
where oceans withdraw tides,
where waves retract,
where you start to see?
Where are we
and where will we be?
Is it a place
where the moon changes spheres,
where planets collide,
where two becomes three?
Where is it
and where will it be?
The place for love,
for rewriting the script,
for new beginnings,
for you and for me.
Enjoyed your poem, Emma, and all the questions. Sounds like you might be there already!
The Porch Swing
Back and forth, around in an
oval it sways in the rainy
breeze, and rocks itself,
like a baby,
to sleep.
How many times have we,
coffee cup in hand,
greeted the morning
sun there, or
sipped a cup of
wine where before
dinner,
swinging in its
wooden arms,
we solved all the
world’s problems?
Some places are meant
for good, I think,
not harm.
The porch swing,
lulling
at a distance, just so,
is one of them, or
should be.
We rock
We talk
We rock
We talk
And when we are done
the swing, in the breeze,
soothes and entertains us
in its easy way.
And now I watch it swaying
alone in the rain and it doesn’t
seem lonely, only waiting
for someone to rock
back and forth,
to rock
to an fro
to rock
and talk
and watch
the world
go by.
Love the rhythm of this! Now I wish I had a porch swing.
FINDING HOME.
If You could have just
Spoken up, God,
just
used a louder voice
Maybe she could have
heard You over the
Pronouncements
Announcements
of No Worth
and
Self-Hate
But they were being
etched
in her bones
long before she had words
in that dark place called
“home.”
And when the wine
and the pills
became
an easy way
to slide away
hide away
muffle the pain
she slipped off
in morning sleep.
I just wish You would have
spoken up, God,
showing her
that
Home
was already there,
in the heart of her
where
the people who loved her
lived.
Superb
Thank you so much.
Excellent!
What all the rest said too! An amazing poem!
Thank you diedre and Janet for taking the time to stop and comment!
At Water’s Edge
at water’s edge
tarblack rocks
shelter small pools where
tiniest of fish dart, safe
for the moment, secure,
locked in constant
movement,
rippling causing circles
that intersect, then
break, repetitive as breath
(greyshelled, a collection of blood, sinew,
flesh, bone, all bound
together by twining filaments, clinging to
an opalescent interior, smooth, curving,
rainbow mottled, mother-of-pearl
sleekness within, without an exterior darkribbed,
edges sharp enough to
gouge the fingertips, bony teeth
tasting blood mixed with
salt water)
until the tide rushes in, noisy,
untrammeled, unmannerly, pounding, over
this threshold of sand and rock,
thick with green ribbons of kelp,
briny, stunted flowers, washing over, saltgreen,
the saltgreen sea,
over stinking carcasses of horseshoe
crabs, to wrest these fishes from
their pools, sending them
to certain death
The descriptions are spot on. Stark, clear writing.
Many thanks!
Crisp images make me think of the tide pools in Santa Cruz.
Thank you very much for taking the time to comment….I appreciate it!
Locality
By Shell Ochsner
Now is presently a nice surprise
Taking for granted can be your demise
Today’s a gift now hold it wise
Be thankful that the sun will rise
Never, ever compromise
This place in time, holds its ties
Supposed to be, do not chastise
Skin Rose
His tattoos serve
as green-black needles that point
to heart, to home.
Never would’ve thought of that. Makes me think of a compass rose.
A compass rose would make a cool tattoo…..
Nice.
TULE FOG
California’s Central Valley
is really Irrigation Alley:
its green’s so faux you’d want to flee it;
that is, of course, if you could see it.
It’s often cloaked in mists unruly:
the cotton fog that’s known as tule,
which, when its formless flows arrive,
would make you rather walk than drive.
If so, you’ll jog with eyes agog,
for tule fog is truly fog.
You have captured the I-5 experience.
Thanks. I haven’t driven it in 20 years, but I still see that fog, and the cotton fields.
Yes. And these days it’s also the haze of air pollution.
HAIKUS TO THE HEART
Entering into
The heart of love brings us peace
Because truth is there
Truth is in our heart
It knows, it see, it feels love
We are not separate
When we know our heart
All of who we are can smile
Knowing that love’s real
What is in our heart
Will not ever leave our side
It is within us
Loving our own love
Keeps us feeling positive
True love sets us free
GALLERY
We stroll its light corridors, at first
pausing in concert at each painting.
You look quickly, fluidly, as though
drinking water after a long hike. I stop
and stick, like a stubborn drawer
that won’t open. Soon you are several
masterpieces distant, flowing on a
stream of images, while I
circle and circle
the rim of a
sunflower.
Wonderful; the images are poignant.
I absolutely love this and your description of the two different styles! I am captivated, plain and simple.
Mm, lovely.
BRAVO! Again. Particulary love the measurement of space by masterpieces and the simile of the stubborn drawer and the tapering of the last lines.
WHERE I FIND YOU
Letting the wings of love gracefully fly
I know in my heart where I can find you
Energetically the love sends me so high
Lifting our spirits up, soaring together as two
Love wrapping us in the warmest embrace
As if love itself is dancing to the inspiring song
With its dips, twirls, ecstatic vibration spinning pace
In this depth of love is definitely where we belong
Inviting this love to guide and show us the way
Leads us to know love’s truthful meaning to unite
As if the whole of the cosmos are having their say
Joining two lovers through the highest intention of light
Once the spirit and flight of pure, inspiring, uplifting imagination
Comes back to earth we smile, knowing the freedom of love . . .
Found its greatest vacation from an inner location!
Under the weeping willow tree,
is where I love to be,
unless, of course, I am out at sea,
riding the murmuring waves,
atop the tip of a great big ship
plowing the cerulean waves.
But willows arms bring gentle thoughts,
of love, all soft and warm,
unless red mountains come my way
upon a dawning morn,
then I become a bird in flight,
with measured sailing above the world
a guardian of all three.
Nice! Write on!
Thank you x a million
That Naughty Spot
How many have
pointed and wondered
fretted and what-not
squirmed and informed
and still not quite got
that darned spot that
seemed for some
to move, float and to elude
though one might have thought
it simple to see right there out in
the nude
but somehow the spot is impish
dodging, teasing laughing – see?
snatching pleasure away
giggling gleefully
and it finally comes to this
too often for too many
that spot turns not-got cold
results in too many not getting
any
Spot on!
Well the title sure got my mind spinnin’! LOL!!
Made me laugh. Delightful.
Aw thanks to all – I’ve been so serious with so many that I just felt like a little bit of fun – so happy that you enjoyed
SOMEWHERE CLOSE
Gentle landscapes
Wind whipped hills
Emerald colored trees
Filled with freshening fruit
Bundles of berry bearing bushes
Just right for the picking
Sparkling coastlines
With a brilliant sun
Dancing high on a sapphire sky
With an ocean
Flowing in harmonic motion
Brightly decorated birds
Unique beautiful vibrant sounds
Through flashes of feathers
Gliding on a breeze that ease
An active, cluttered mind
A joy to find
Created somewhere safe
A place where life regenerates
Anything that hates disappears
As the heart clears
Anything it nears
Gone are the fears
The soul is present
In each moment
Of peace
Standing
In
The
Stillness of . . .
Now
Tranquility
I harvested this place, tucked it away
in one of the drawers in my mind, where
I could come in moments of anguish and
moments of disconnection – when feelings
seem tainted by lack of direction, I visit
in my mind and collect droplets of peace,
a sweet nectar that soothes the snarls
and evens the chaos into smaller wrinkles,
patches of shade on a sunny hillside; here,
there is simplicity, and unconsciousness
where events narrow and voices cease—
this place has something I want, that
palpable taste of sweet wonder; here
just at the water’s edge with the moon
swimming on ripples, and the soft grass
beaded with a light sprinkle—
this place holds the promise of
timelessness, where nothing matters,
a vision of solitude where dreams
can spin without hampering doubt; here
there is a light in the distance and soft
susurrations of a breeze, and all of it fills me
till I am once more at ease; here
where everything began, or perhaps where
it all ended – either way a completion,
a new beginning not fraught with
frayed ropes of dissatisfactions; here
where I drink what I cannot have, where
the impossible is merely a small impediment,
a place of reverence and tears, secret smiles
and treasures nestled in abstractions
that never see the light of day; here,
there is tranquility in this mélange of
my harvest, here, in this place.
April 23, 2014
By: Lucy K. Melocco
I’m always in a bit of awe at how well you weave words, such as, in this poem, “palpable taste of sweet wonder/” This is marvellous.
Why, thank you
I am glad you enjoy this and my other poems so much, it makes it worth writing them!
An Island in Three Acts
I was small
you were generous
gifts of warm waves
too-salty pasta
creaking deck and
billowing sail
shoes by the bed
for killing black bugs
soft warm air and
geckos clinging
it was a crossroads
a life I never lived
I was older
meeting you again
discovering a place
more than a person
gracious open
palm and poinsettia
one more visit
lover and friend
scallops and
tree-drying pasta
a surprising love song
changed everything
now a memory
decades in making
salty dollar and conch soup
my seven year self
my searching self
my loving self
So lovely!
Love the cascade of images over time.
SMOKE’S CREEK RUNS UNDER WOOD STREET
Standing on the bank
of the creek, you’re depressed.
This place is a mess.
Sharp shards of glass protrude,
with open containers strewn
under the bridge that gapped
the aches and pains of your reality
with the memories of your youth.
Rocking on the flat stones
breaking limbs and bones
as the rocks sway in the water
to slide and sink, thinking twice
before you perform without
a stunt double; you got in big trouble.
Stolen memories you could bank.
There Is No There There
In the why and where
there
finally one comes to
know
that after all the
looking there is no
there, there
no pinpointed
happily-ever-after
princess – unicorned
place
where good girls only get
to go
But, if all the bad girls are there… I’m there, count me in!
You made me grin, Pearl. Much needed today.
Indeed; her humor hits the spot.
Thanks William – you have had your work cut out for you – responding to oh so very very many poems – much appreciated
and incidentally – I do believe above and beyond the call of PL duty
… (though I understand the impetus and know that your enormous efforts are so deeply appreciated by so very many).
Oh I am delighted dear Walt – love the comment – keep that chin up – even though it might be a bit difficult to type in that position
i’m so disappointed to learn this truth–
Whiteout
More used to color,
I find it difficult here,
whitest town ever.
~ Kit Cooley
This is stark; fitting, i think, for the subject.
Love this.
Simple, clean, direct, and clear.
The Flowers Bloom Like Clock Work Too
I forgot what country this is
some country with talent
Look there a kid is chasing
a small dog
the dog looks happy to be chased
and the child is laughing and running
as they turn off the sidewalk
into and alley
past a bent fence post
where the chain link fence is sagging
And look into that kitchen window there
a woman is washing dishes one by one
each dish is scrubbed and rinsed
and set in a dish rack to dry
she is humming a song
and watching the hue of the sky
change as the sun sets
on this Rockwell town
the street lamps have replaced
the sun sad light lamps
a poor replacement for the sun
the locusts buzz and
generators hum
light bugs leap up
little bottle rockets to their
own independence
every little common thing has been
done gracefully
what a wonderful country
if only I could remember which one
Your poem was great on the tongue–i’m not sure how else to say that!
Location, Location, Location
Grandfather passed the
“clicker” to her and
let her count as throngs
of midtown city folk
thronged – bumping
into one another in
their lunch-hour
rush
on the
OTHER
sunny
side of the street
I want to live underground
As a small boy
I enjoyed digging holes
Seeing how deep I could go
Family road trips always stopped
At roadside crystal caverns
With cheap souvenir shops
I moved my bedroom to the basement
So much more peaceful there
Cool and dark as an eternal rainy morning
I slept underground until moving to a dorm
And after so many walk-up apartments
I desire a return to the earth
I would dig into the south side of a hill
Dirt for insulation
Grass for shingles
Still earth beneath my feet
Closer to the core
Under There
They say he is under there
under the earth that every
one took a turn shoveling
on top of a box
where they said
he was resting
The say he is under there
now that the grass is grown
I could say maybe
but it still
doesn’t make
any sense at
all
Bingo!
I do love to receive one of your “Bingos!” …
Thanks!
So true.
Thank you so very much James for reading, stopping and commenting on such a very very busy “Street” here.
Location
Location, a place on earth,
with-in your life, measuring your worth,
Location, a change in altitude,
attitude, a new avenue,
Location, take a vacation,
the soul awakens,
Location, location, location,
forsaken, mistaken, expectations.
“Auto Vent”
this therapy chamber
in its idle time has
a way of extracting the
vulnerable sides of me and
irrepressible squeals and
hollers of inadequacies
are sealed within these
four locked doors and
i’m voluntarily trapped
an emotional piece of cargo
oscillating cross-legged and
barefoot pounding the wheel
in a disturbing exhibition
but in no way pretentious
merely shattered and in
need of an ephemeral release
and i mop tears across my
thighs and leather seats
not unfamiliar behavior
in these multi-minute sessions
and the prescription is silence
no interruptions, no judgment
it’s merely a keeper of my
burdens on overload and
to the left of my right
temple bears an imprint
from the wheel propping
up my unwinding senses
and finally a lighter and
lifted self exits ready to
prepare a delightful
dinner for the evening
SEATS AT THE REGAL
Once upon a time, it was Majestic;
a kingdom from a golden age
where long ago would be staged
celluloid festivals for the eyes and ears.
Offering jeers and tears, cheers
and frightening fears of a beast
from an unknown dimension.
Did I mention matinees and serials
on Saturdays; memories of a bygone day?
Now state of the art, you start at the concessions
for bucket and barrel from sterile environs
massive media madhouse multiplex,
stadium seats that align in neat rows.
That’s how it goes. First run offerings
fit for a king. (As long as you
pick what the queen wants to view!)
some days
a struggle of words
to watch the clouds
idle by while my father
hangs by a line in the ER
Wow. This throws up powerful images.
Bam!
Powerful. Brought tears to my eyes.
Powerful and specific. This will stay with me.
INTROVERSION
The insides of the eggshells from this morning’s
hardboiled hotel breakfast are a pale aqua blue,
almost the exact shade as the walls of my bathroom
at home. After I’ve eaten my meal, I think
this is not how those eggs might have preferred
to end up, split apart as they were from the outside,
not the way nature might otherwise have intended.
They are now so very far from their nest.
I myself am hundreds of miles from my
own nest, uncomfortable, and missing home.
Being out in the world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
I really like how you wove this together.
Entirely relatable, Kelly. Nice to see an appearance from you here.
Thanks, Kendall. <3
Wherever you go
my spirit will go with you.
i am where you are.
Yes, and aren’t we there already? Wonderful, Walt!
A Place of Meditation
Deep breath in — I am
long exhale — Love
In — I am
Out — Love
In — silence
Out — thought
In the moment
out amid the universe.
In discovery — I am
out to the world — me.
In a state of being
outside limitations.
In my head dancing with light
outward my heart offers warmth.
In breath, I exist
out of vapor, I expand.
Delaware River, 2010
This is where it started,
the place where you gathered
me into you and wrapped me in
your body, like the warmest
cocoon. The sunlight reflected
off the the soft waves, men
wearing workout pants jogged by -
no one noticed what we started,
there was no one there to say
that it was wrong, that the solace
we took in each other would pierce
our hands and heads, keep a lifetime
of what if’s on ice every time your
name was on my breath. The rusting
railing left a faint orange line on
my coat where your body pressed against
mine, our lips meeting over and over.
My shoe untied in the melee of us,
the quick movements of limbs and toes,
and you bent down and tied me back
together, then rose and put my face
in your hands. It still longs to be
back in that space, that crook of jubilation.
Sigh. Lovely.
Nicely woven, a consistent melancholy tone.
Hey, remember when you said you were writing a bunch of shit? Yeah. Shut up. This proves you’re not.
Sit Beside Me
Sit beside me, just for a moment
In that special place, on the fresh baked sand
where I would etch your name with spells
and watch it wash away, in star shaped shells
of you
Sit beside me, just for a moment
where the sky blew strawberry scrolls
of words unheard, unsaid, but swirled
and rolled, in dreams of moonlit pearls
of you
Sit besides me, just for a moment
where the sidewalk met green strolling paths
where glimpses stolen, found a nook
and I would hold that picture book
of you
Just sit beside me, for a moment
and let me show you those places
where you once lived
Just for a moment, sit beside me, there —-
With You, Everywhere, but Only in My Dreams
Lydia Flores
My fingers scrawl
the words of silence
on your cool cheek.
I kiss you lightly upon
your lips and taste wind
calm, we sail the seas
rowing the boat with
our tongues the ocean
rushes and slams our
heart beats to the sand.
You bury your head in
my neck and the sun
brings me summer sooner
than winter can melt it’s
snow from my breath.
Leaving nests for flight
a humming bird wings
buzzing and hovering
in mid air of your pleasure.
Whispering through valleys
you pull out all my secrets
and I become the glowing
light at the end.
slowed currents, breaths
ripple out and back to
the surface. or home.
Your tide pulling me
in to your arms. rest,
a shore and sighing waters
a calling to a kiss I give upon
your lips the waves touch. and
go back. into sleep we recede.
Again to scrawling silence
awakening my wings, without
a humming of joy, in these
empty fields of soft sun
fluttering in loneliness.
Upstate
The days are never predictable in New York.
I’ve grown up with the saying
if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.
It has been a life lived in layers
and looking to the sky each morning.
Today my daughter comes down the stairs
in shorts and a tank top expecting a repeat
of the previous day’s warmth.
She is deflated when I tell her
the high of the day is 45 with rain.
With slumped shoulders
she goes up to her room to change.
I rouse the dog for his walk
and am thankful I’ve yet
to put away the winter coats.
Aleathia Drehmer 2014
April 23 Location
Understood. It’s like hat here too.
I love the simplicity of the story told.
Simple, direct, and crystal clear.
LONGITUDE
I’m not sure
where I am
on the map
as if life
could ever be
navigated that way
the only latitude
I need is
to be freed
from my own
expectations of where
I ought to
be by now
Love this!
So well said! This fits at any time of life really.
What a wise poem!
I think I’ve felt this way in my teens, 20s, and 30s. And I’m sure there will be times in my life in the coming decade when it’s still appropriate!
Guest Room
I never seen more righteous angles
Then the four that make this room
Every line, as straight as a church mouse
With white walls painted whiter
The sign above the bed reads
‘all are welcomed here’
but with out a place to hang my hat
I get the feeling it’s not sincere
By Michelle Murrish
This is fascinating, especially since I’ve never seen a straight mouse, of any denomination. This has a chilling feel, fitting, I think, for your conclusion.
Oh, sharp! Love it, though I too, hung a bit on church mouse. I think of the expression “poor as a church mouse” actually.
thanks, I was thinking “straight and narrow”
I think i’ll rewrite a little!
sometimes mixing the metaphors can give an unintended feel. I like it just the way it is.
Abroad
I wake from foreign dreams
disturbed and lost
in India I think or Pakistan
but cruelty can happen anywhere
and characters I favor as I sleep
betray my faith in them
and only seem to craft
a dreamscape I would own.
They play me, make me want
to stay awake all night
and write bad poetry
about dark shadows squatting
in my brain until I’m dull
defenseless to object,
about how they’ve turned surly
with neglect and moved into
night visions, new terrain.
I struggle to embrace them
feeling false, but wake up emptied,
something moved away.
I can’t identify what’s lost within;
I cannot say exactly where I’ve been;
I note a vacancy, shifting to day
but you were there,
and never once said stay.
This feels like a train coasting down a mild grade; it leaves me hoping the brakes work. Very compelling writing.
Agreed. But I quite liked it. You cracked me up, PressOn!
Rather sneakily heartbreaking.
A Rock is Meant for Sitting
I follow your footsteps
up small, side-of-the-mountain stones
meant for climbing.
Wet tracks glisten
from three sets of boots –
mine will make the fourth.
Halfway up the mountain
we sit -
ducks in a row -
pointing to Lake Windermere
in the distance.
I ask if we can stop climbing
long en
Please excuse the incomplete poem above. Below is the full poem. I am posting this from vacation, and all I have is a phone.
A Rock is Meant for Sitting
I follow your footsteps
up small, side-of-the-mountain stones
meant for climbing.
Wet tracks glisten
from three sets of boots -
mine will make the fourth.
Halfway up the mountain
we sit -
ducks in a row -
pointing to Lake Windermere
in the distance.
I ask if we can stop climbing
long enough to take it all in -
not yet wanting to wander down,
but not wanting to go
any higher.
My eyes rest on water
and the jagged rocks all around.
A single, black slug
makes it’s slow, wet path
across a piece of slate.
It is as
A Rock is Meant for Sitting
I follow your footsteps
up small, side-of-the-mountain stones
meant for climbing.
Wet tracks glisten
from three sets of boots -
mine will make the fourth.
Halfway up the mountain
we sit -
ducks in a row -
pointing to Lake Windermere
in the distance.
I ask if we can stop climbing
long enough to take it all in -
not yet wanting to wander down,
but not wanting to go
any higher.
My eyes rest on water
and the jagged rocks all around.
A single, black slug
makes it’s slow, wet path
across a piece of slate.
It is as if he is not moving
at all -
his body’s breath
is movement enough.
Cristina M. R. Norcross
Copyright 2014
(Day 23 has proven to be frustrating without my computer with me. Apologies again. This last reply has the full poem.)
It’s worth waiting for. Wonderful.
Nice.
Happy Hour
It should be quite simple,
The feeding of birds,
Buy feeder and seed,
Select a high branch.
Immediate fulfillment,
Wrens, finches, chick-a-dees,
Awake to music,
The singing of gratitude.
Refill and replenish,
Again and again,
The gluttony of the small,
Surprising to man.
A leap of fur,
A grasping paw,
Seeds and feeder,
Flung to the ground.
A squirrel banquet,
A nuisance feast,
Baffles purchased,
Battles begin.
Move the feeder,
Mystified briefly,
Move the damn feeder,
Losing the escalating skirmish.
Googling daily,
Outthinking a squirrel,
Fancy degrees mean nothing,
Rodents with sly boots.
Considering cayenne,
But foresee wee salt-rimmed glasses,
Tequila shots for all,
The cantina, my backyard.
This, I understand. Superb descriptions, and I love the finish.
Haha!! I loved the way I could feel the growing frustration.
Ah yes, feed the birds, feed the squirrels….
Proximity
That dogwood was misshapen, I know now,
lopsided crowded by big hardwood trees,
its backside canting upward like a wing,
its front limbs reaching downward like a fan.
I sat behind its veil of leaves, well-screened
from siblings, parents, entertaining dreams,
broad sunlight making patterns on thick moss
like carpets at its roots where I would play
for hours at being me, lacy with light.
The tree was tucked into a forest’s edge
and looked across a pasture and a pond.
“Stay within earshot” was our rule of thumb
so if we heard our name, we’d know to come.
My secret tree was far enough I’d need
a shout to bring me back from reverie.
You want that kind of distance when you think,
a place just far enough to set you free.
Of course, it was not big, but I was small;
in memory our loves can grow so tall
we cannot find them in our walking world.
And logic should have told me dogwood trees
hunker to earth, not like oaks touching sky.
Just so, reality reshapes a place
as surgery will smooth lines in a face.
Third person memory sees through the veil:
a little girl eavesdropping on the world,
the fanning limb more like a broken wing,
protecting her from dark self-crushing things
where red is a betrayal that she wears.
Raised voices call her, searching everywhere,
their urgency suggests to her they care.
It doesn’t take so much to salve our souls,
brief closets in ourselves where we can go
to meet imagination, redesign
the lives we yet could have, the selves we are.
This is a sermon.Would that preachers wrote (and understood) so well.
This is quite lovely. Thank you.
Cubic-Ill
My workspace
is about four by four,
only big enough
to lie down in
if you curl up
in the fetal position,
which I do often.
The walls
are just tall enough
to obscure
whatever interesting
might be happening
in the rest of the office,
and the sides
are covered
in a spongy,
soul-sucking tan fabric,
just soft enough
that it only hurts
a little bit
when you bang your head
against it repeatedly.
I’ve tried to decorate,
bring in photos,
a stuffed animal,
a couple plants,
but it will never be home,
the jade and cactus
keep dying,
and the fluorescent lighting
is slowly giving me
the complexion
of a sick lizard.
A friend of mine
suggested I get a goldfish
or a gerbil,
a small pet
to liven up my cube,
but I can’t.
Just the idea
of putting an animal
in a small bowl or cage
strictly for my amusement
feels cruel,
sadistic and wrong,
and a bit too much
like management.
SO well said! love it.
OMG. You need a new job.
ditto!!!!
Sacred and Profane
A tourist stands upon a mark of shame
Placed where Mary’s flame turned goodmen into ash,
And busloads of visitors now leave their trash,
And I do mourn this double bane.
On this spot Latimer and Ridley stood
Condemned to burn- Queen Mary’s pleasure,
It required human sacrifice, a measure
Hard to comprehend, the mixing of men and wood
To fire the faith, and teach peace and love.
This sermon in fire not sent from above,
A lesson in right divine theology,
Scorched the stone wall of Balliol College,
And branded said martyrs with the mark of Beelzebub.
‘Be of good comfort, and play the man,’ said
Latimer to Ridley as there they burned,
And the tourist expresses his concern
By covering this place of martyred dead
With papers provided by Burger King.
nice juxtaposition. really like the near-rhyme that shows up in here a bit, too.
Thanks.
I thought near rhyme suited the sermon stanza. It’s good to know it was noticed.
Masterful, utterly masterful.
Thank you.
“the mixing of men and wood/to fire the faith, and teach peace and love.” Love this!
Thank you.
I was torn between the line as it is here, and:
Hard to comprehend: the mixing of men and wood
To fire the faith that teaches peace and love.
The alt line flows better, but slightly shifts the perspective. I want the flow without the shift.
Decisions Decisions
Yes, echo the others. Well done.
James,
Thank you
I learned some history by reading this–thanks.
Thank you.
I am interested in the ‘presentness of the past’; how the sacred and the profane co-exist (or don’t); how tourism reframes the past; Place de la Concorde; the death camps of WWII; and . . .
Today’s prompt pushed me to explore these interests through poetry.
A Dream Built for Darling
By: Michelle Bramucci
It’s 1985
A cul-de-sac nestled
In deep green woods
Resting by reservoir
Cedar shake tri-story
With enormous windows
Decadent, Contemporary
A Frank Lloyd Wright dream of
Modern Architecture
Oozing passion, romance
Extravagance-every angle executed with elegance
Grace-resting seamlessly within a natural surround
The portico, slick terracotta tiles cool underfoot
Cylindrical sunroom-cream walls
Big, warm, wooden double doors
Spiral staircase in a massive foyer
Cream and brown
Grey stone
Grass wallpaper
Warm, champagne glow of crystal chandelier
Skylights and plush white carpet
Burnt-orange Formica countertops
Semi-lune breakfast nook
Overlook silky green shadows
Through enormous windows
Cigar smoke and bourbon
Chanel No. 5 and lavender sachet
Sun diffused boxwood
Wet earth and gravel
The gut to spine chill of a song’s melodic hook
A perfect backdrop for a vivid imagination
I just want to say first how much I am enjoying the PAD. I have never done one before and I find it a great outlet for me. Thanks. Now for my poem:
‘
Sunshine and Peace
Laying on the creek bank with my eyes half closed
Watching the pole for movement to let me know
That a fish is dangling on the end of the line.
Pulling but hopefully not twisting my twine.
The sun is so warm as it rests on my cheeks
I can sort of see the blue sky soft and sheek
I steal a glance at my pole which is oh so still
Before I lay back down on the side of the hill
Loving every moment of this beautiful day
I run my hands over and feel the soft red clay.
The peace is so soothing, I feel so free
Only to be jarred awake by a noise from the tv
Opening my eyes I couldn’t help but wonder why
The tv was here with me under the sky.
Then I looked out the window and frowned with dismay
There was still ice and snow outside this cold winter day.
Ah, what a nice shaggy-fish story.
Isn’t it such fun to take part in the PAD? I love it too. And I was feelin’ the sun and seein’ the sky right with you, then that stinking tv!
You had me there. Well turned.
Nice!
MY LIBRARY
There is nary a space in this place
that doesn’t possess a book, a tape, an album,
or a DVD. Were it up to me, you would see
my life cataloged much like my movies
and records, all in accordance with
alphabetic law. It’s my flaw to which
I’ll admit, and given the chance I will add to it.
This mass of media, my personal library,
If I really get serious, this thing will get scary.
in the light of the sun
The sun crashed down on my surroundings
Gleaming off of chrome
Blinded by words echoing light
I turned toward the sky
Seeing pink and red
Closing eyelids I heard the sky and its music
Birds floated far above me
They left me still in the light
To interpret the words of that gleam from chrome
I could see all this. Wonderful writing.
thank you!
LOCATION INTERNET
Waves bend
and fracture me
into my online
identities. Here
I am a wannabe
poet from Ireland.
There I am a gentle
knitter of baby clothes
in Wales. Elsewhere
I am a harsh critic of
left-wing articles
in a British daily
newspaper. I may
or may not be a boy
on soft porn sites,
a birdwatcher in Canada,
or a poster of urban photos
in New Zealand.
My spreadsheet of screen names
is an Excellent afternoon’s work.
I am more than the sum of my places,
but all my places shape
who I am. I can bilocate, trilocate,
new tab and relocate.
I love this space, this place,
dislocation.
This is a world I don’t know, but your descriptions give me a good idea.
A Day In Sea Cliff
~
A wonderful town I lived in,
peaceful and Rockwellian.
Backyard apple orchards, grapevines,
sassafras grew by the roadside.
~
Steep hills, roads and switch back pathways,
rose upward from the shore to heights,
lined with flat-topped Victorians.
Roofs known to all, as Widow’s Watch.
~
The quaint town was also haunted
by the spirits of family,
to pace forever on rooftops,
faint eyes riveted on the sea.
~
Nightly winds always seemed to sough
through skeletal dogwood branches.
Moon cast shadows in my bedroom
that loomed large in my sleepy mind.
~
I woke to a foggy morning
peered intently through the gray mists,
grateful there was nothing to see,
but the literal early birds.
~
Any given day in Sea Cliff
I could sit down by Scudder’s Pond,
listen to the choral bullfrogs
prognosticating and courting.
~
The Mallards witnessed, from their nests
hidden in the fetid marsh mud,
my invasion of their haven,
loudly squawking their displeasure.
~
I’d run across to Tappen’s beach.
to watch horseshoe crabs piggyback.
Swim in the calm inlet waters,
then march home soggy, soaked in brine.
***
~ M. Zane McClellan
***
Thanks for raising the curtain on nostalgia. I loved this.
Well written as always. Takes you to the place and makes you feel as though you were and ARE actually there.
Plans
I choose locations
for exotic vacations
I might never take
T. S. Gray
ONE MAN’S ISLAND
They say no
man is an island, and that fact
is quite true. You could live your life in silence, hear-
ing you and only you. You would isolate from violence, and think
you had a coup. Before you cue the violins I have some news for you.
You could escape within your mind, to places far and near,
And if you do this you will find you get away
from here.
“Head off”
to some ex-
otic clime, a
place that you
hold dear. Sit on
the shore and
write your rhyme,
your purpose will
be clear. My “island”
is this place for one
where all my voices
speak, It’s my escape
to have some fun, and
find the peace I seek. Set
your sails and follow the sun, and give your
muse a tweak. You’ll be surprised when you are done, your work will be unique.
I love the palm tree shape, and I love the line, “give your/ muse a tweak.” Great job, looks time consuming!
This is amazing … and yes, John Donne’s poem is so great.
Brillant! I love this.
Wonderful. All it needs is Red Sails in the Sunset.
Amazing!
Very nice!
So very cool!!
You are an incredibly talented crazy man. These take FOR.EV.ER.
Love the playing with form! Give your muse a break indeed!
I abso- lutely, -lutely, -lutely love this! Well written and well presented.
Rotation Reversed
Five feathers fall (From the frantic fail)
(Freezing frightened force)
(Front the foolish face)
Entranced by early eves (Eager to end)
(Escaping everyday)
(Eroding elemental)
Drowning darker days (Driven dire dreams)
(Diluted drinking dives)
(Deluded deadly drama)
Creating crisper calls (Crystal killing cries)
(Crazy cooling catch)
(Corrosive comical cages)
Bridging bellowed bites (Broken bawling brides)
(Bridging borrowed bile)
(Belaying basking bait)
Arriving always around (Appearing atrophy-aged)
(Aboard abounding eights)
(Always asking of art)
Wow. The work that must’ve gone into this staggers me. Wizardry is working here.
“Home”
It’s the harp under the willows
and the song of the bullfrogs.
It’s the fairy tales I read
to the darlings each night.
It’s the skinned knees, the
the burnt bagels, and the ants
marching two-by-two.
It’s the kitten on my pillow
and the naive goldfish in the bowl.
It’s the frosting on my lips
from another birthday and
the hot coffee warming my
hands while we’re gazing
at the stars.
Experience life
Travel across the ocean
Check off bucket list
Don’t grow old sitting at home
Wear sunscreen without regret
http://vhosking.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/napowrimo-day-twenty-three-phonetic-translation/
Instilled
I know you were once a part
of me, nesting inside my bones
I found you; curled like a white
horn fused to me from the inside.
How else could you have known
that I was brittle? That I was milk-
white and hollow and I needed
someone to save me? When I
was broken, you poured from
my being like you had always
been there, holding me together
but knowing I would fall apart,
splinter into pieces like a china
cup, reduce down to sand, but
you soldered me whole again;
not because I would’ve turned
back into grain, no— because
saving me meant saving you.
For me, this is both heart-wrenching and heart-warming. Wonderful/
absolutely striking
Lovely.
A scene
Translucently emerald green
Each short blade a perfection of grass
A sea of life drinking in the sunlight.
Lapping against the cold kerb stones,
Like life testing restrictions.
The winding grey road beyond,
hot like a basking reptile,
Undulating towards the shaded parking.
Accross the road and another green sea,
a small brook practices music,
down its rocky course.
Finches fight over forgotten sandwiches,
a feast on a green tabletopp.
In the dappled shade of the tree crowned parking,
swallows weave in effortless dance.
The open box of a painted parking,
holds a familiar car
And across the bushes, where a path starts,
strings a startling yellow tape
Barring the way to the clearing beyond,
Where a broken body lies in bloody disarray.
Dearest Bard of Avon
Four hundred and fifty years tears us apart,
to be connected within your pages
painting the very essence of your heart.
My love for you cannot be assuaged.
People will think I’m mad but I don’t care.
No matter what’s said, I will come to you,
toiling beside you and your London air,
penning plays and sonnets you can’t subdue.
How is it you’re able to sprout such words
That pierces us to death yet gives us life?
Will there come a day when I’ll have two-thirds
of my idol’s talent or must I strive
instead to be the fly on your mind’s wall?
Or would you think I have too much gall?
by Lidy Wilks
Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Day 23 Location poem
Sunblocked
Slathered on,
layered on the
darkness
of the day before,
depression
walks in your skin
till every gentle
touch of kindness
burns
with the pain
of seeing hope
drift away
leaving an ocean
of tears
to drown
everyone
who cried
to save you.
Powerful.
Painful. Well wrought.
you are here or there
i once knew a man
with no shoes
until i had no feet
and then he left me
because of the constant
blood puddle
but at least i left
no footprints and no one
had to carry me across
a sweaty, sandy
mid-morning while wearing
robes which seems dangerous
you could fall and then
who would provide loaves
and fishes for a day
that you could eat and stuff
into your linted, lenten pocket
to stink forever and teach this smell
i tried nine stitches across
my stumps but it didn’t save any
time any more than waxed floss
and please don’t tell anyone
i’ve never spoken
true, truer or truest words
i really need a horse
to bring me a few nice gifts
that haven’t been inside
its mouth and i want to look
around and ride that leather
somewhere out of this day
all i want is hot
stones on my lower back
while my legs dream of the feet
that were severed in a house of glass
shards thrown everywhere but once
was filled with idioms and idiots
- k weber
This is edgy, original, and very good..
wow
When? Where? Why?
Pacific time.
Zone A, Seat 7D.
For a cup of jazz
and poetry in motion.
—Danielle C. Robinson
Correction:
When? Where? Why?
Pacific time.
Zone A, Seat 7D.
For a cup of jazz
and poetry.
Sanctuary
The world can be a crazy place,
big crowds may be ordinary
but make me crave some breathing space
to sit beneath my willow tree.
Escape is not one time of year,
the brisk air of February
means many layers of cashmere
to sit beneath my willow tree.
Don’t think me lonely under here,
my daydreams are legendary;
dragons, fairies, and elves appear
to sit beneath my willow tree.
If you’re ever feeling slighted,
in need of a sanctuary,
know you are always invited
to sit beneath my willow tree.
by Mary W. Jensen
I think this is wonderful; it’s such an inviting>/i> poem.
Thank you, PressOn.
“The Overpass”
by David M. Hoenig
I see the place under the bridge, grave
of cardboard, newspaper, glass, paper cup,
where a troll could hide, and say:
“I’m coming to gobble you up!”
Only now someone’s tidied the spot
by removing debris and making a pile
of something. With traffic, speed, whatnot,
I can’t make much of what’s the style
of what’s there. Later, after work
on migration home, I slow to check
and see what’s there, and by quirk
of traffic, I stop. I see head and neck
of a young girl, maybe ten,
who’s smiling, white teeth in black
face. She’s lovely, with a golden
bow, but she’s trapped in a plaque
that’s resistant to wear and tear.
I’m honked awake- I have to move,
but part of me stays there,
under the bridge, wondering if it’d behoove
me going back to better understand.
But it’s a shrine, of course: they crop
up here and there, wherever there’s land
for someone needing room to prop
up their pain. Under that bridge, someone
needed a place to express their hurt
in a public way. And suddenly, I’m undone,
crying as my own tears fall and desert
my eyes, thinking about my own lost.
Driving home through blurry ways,
my thoughts feel like they’ve been tossed
around and scattered. Navigating maze
home, I realize that I’ve got my own shrine
set up inside, and it comforts my soul;
under the overpass of the divine
where my memories keep you whole.
It is amazing what little and random things can trigger the memory of loss.
I was thinking the same, and this powerful piece stirred it.
Lovely again.
Port O’Connor
The town at the end of the road
Where the silt meets the sand of the bay
Folks go there attracted by fishing
Lured in by the siren of sea
No traffic light. Yes! No McDonalds.
One store and four bait shops do vend
No building code: potpourri houses
Painted in pastel pastiche
Wind blowing in from the southeast
Bringing the salt and the spray
End of the road when you go there
Bemused by the measure of peace
by gpr crane
I love this place; I can see it and feel it, the final line notwithstanding.
The Library
The library is such a wonderful place,
One can visit regardless, of case.
Whether simply looking for a good read,
The printed word can plant a valued seed.
Then there is the Internet wait line,
For researchers or jobseekers in a bind.
Vast spaces for simple quiet peace.
Troubling, conflicting thoughts can cease.
The library – a place open to all,
Doesn’t matter if one is short or tall.
Keep the library! It is such a sacred space,
Which meets many needs, no matter the taste.
Lynn M. Dixon
4-23-14
Amen!
One of the best gifts I know of to give young children is the experience of going to the library to first get their library card.
Saint Paul de Vence
From a distance,
Cobbled car-less streets curve spirally round
The medieval hill city towards the capstone church
Standing proudly on its peak.
A bubble of forgotten beauty floating outside of time,
Still inaccessible to the stressed-out atrocity of a modern world
That lies, insatiable, waiting outside walls,
Biding its time with surprising patience,
Intelligent, ancient malice.
Inside, this unheeding world wakes quietly to rosy skies and the
Drifting fragrance of new-baked breakfast croissants
Swirling through the morning air from the already-busy boulangerie.
Even now, children gather round flowered fountains in squares
Splashing forth the same song of a thousand years
That tells of childish outrage and giggling delight,
And games snatched through instinct
From the ether by every generation.
Soon the sun rises high over azure seas
That seep into fresh-washed skies vibrant with
Relaxed warmth and expectation of a day driven
In varied, inscrutable directions.
Afternoon retreats to inner courtyards
Graced with crimson and gold splashes of floral offerings
To find relief and drink deeply the green cool and stone silence,
Reverent refuge from the hidden day
Inside a hidden world.
Towards twilight, shadows creep peacefully from gilded tombstones
Across shy, nodding flowers dazed by the day,
Reaching out to bravely touch the distant panorama.
Here, souls lie in peace
Wrapped safely in the presence of the brooding church
And cradled in the whispering stillness of ancient evergreens
That have wept softly and sweetly over every age.
Here too, I wish one day to rest,
Absorbed by numinous peace,
Cradled by whispered longings
Lying outside of time,
Chanting patiently the hope of eternity’s promise.
Though I am not a “church” person, I love this place you describe so well.
Doppelganger
When I was made, they broke the mold,
at least this is what I was always told.
So how could someone else, in some other place
have my shape of head, my hair, my face?
In concept, what a way to skip through life.
In finding a situation rife with stripe,
I could shrug and simply walk away.
And looking over my shoulder could say,
“This isn’t the real me, but in fact a kin.
For you are seeing my evil twin.”
Yet what makes me uniquely me
is my special personality,
my willingness to take responsibility.
So how about people who say they’ve seen
me in cities and countries that I’ve never been?
I guess I’ve got one of those common faces
that can commonly end up in all kinds of places.
And as long that evil twin stays under wraps
I’ll have no worries from INTERPOL’s traps.
Ellen Evans
Despite the slightly sinister undertone, this has me smiling. A lot.
Laughing!
“A sweet boy, though certainly no Romeo”
—as Judy C.
Advantages to living on a thoroughfare:
1. You never have to make a map. 2. You can
always entertain guests just be taking them for
a walk through your own famous neighborhood. 3. When
he comes over, you can talk about the street fair.
Disadvantages: Parking is the biggest one.
You agreed on eight-ish and it’s past nine. He could
be circling the blocks, or he might have forgotten
or decided to do something else. But wouldn’t
he call? I wonder if I should light the fireplace.
At last! He comes in, skin flushed, bringing me a good
apology for his adventures in parking.
My roommate left a half bottle of Ravenswood.
We work on that, talking about the fair, talking
as his flush actually deepens. Though I didn’t
light the fire, he says he’s hot and starts removing
layers. Suddenly the scientist, I’m watching.
DA
brought a smile to my lips
likewise
Me, too!
Where Sand and Surf Meet
The beach: nature’s padded welcome mat
a familiar soft spot to land bare toes
cooled in the morn and evening
warmed under heat of day
The ocean: sea life’s globally connected womb
it’s tide pulls us in again and again to play
the inner energy like a bubbling bath
heals wounds of body and soul
Is it any wonder
the two wonders meet
seamlessly side-by-side
this pairing of brilliant design
Kids of every language build castles
and jump in the waves the same
while adults sun worship in tranquil
our universal home away from home
No matter the map’s location
a worldly flair we share
a same returning connection
to the water and to the sand
Michele K. Smith
I love this. Utterly.
Hush, Hush
Let’s travel to the
land of Nod where all our dreams
will become real
Oops. Forgot a word
Let’s travel to the
land of Nod where all our dreams
will become what’s real
Nantucket Haiku
Nantucket Island
golden swathes of daffodils
heralding the spring
long lazy summers
sunbathers on the north shore
surfers on the south
deep crimson carpets
of red maple leaves in fall
Madaket sunsets
Winter’s Christmas joy
islanders and tourists stroll
white cobblestoned streets
the locals all know
heaven is a place on earth…
Nantucket Island
i’d love to see all of that!
Lady in the Launderette
She folds her clothes just so,
like they used to do in Benetton
in that neat square fashion
you could never hope to recreate
after unfolding.
Bored kids used to go in
just to unfold all the jumpers,
uncaring that the poor assistant
had other things to do. I firmly deny
being one of them.
This little piece is so vivid, and arouses feelings too. Marvellous.
I can see it happening
Sure you weren’t! Like this!
Day 23:
広島層ケーキ
A layer of grass
rests on crazed clay from August,
6th – inches below
.
Day 23:
広島層ケーキ
A layer of grass
rests on crazed clay from August,
6 – inches below
(I like it better with out the “th”)
.
Me, too, but it added some intrigue.
Patricia A. Hawkenson’s a Day 23 Location poem
Like the Plague
It started up front
where everyone
could touch it,
and then pushed it back
where it decayed,
transformed,
until an unsuspecting
victim
in spastic gagging
was unable to recognize
what died
in there
and foolishly
exposed us
to the airborne
death
of the fridge.
Whoa. Great “gotcha”!
heehee!!
Yes, me too.
Anywhere At All
Bus horns, cars blast past
Small trees, tall fences quiet
A city, New York?
Wet crape myrtle blooms
Crimped lace through the back window
Serene orient
Gray silk afternoons
Parisian cats slink in shadows
Impressions linger.
The Arch testifies
History lives in cool walls
Roman holidays.
Postcards from the Nile
Cat goddess Bastet suggests
Sultry mystery.
Oven sent fragrance
Winter baked sweet with warmth
Viennese delights.
Dappled giraffe waits
On the coffee table plain
African retreat.
Bauhaus, forties sounds.
Daylight outlines nouveau curves
Filters time through slats.
Measured by spoonfuls
These days we dwell in Dallas
Worlds swirl in daydreams.
Nestled in behind the sofa
I sit and sigh for a moment
I’m not lazy nor a loafer
Just letting all ideas foment
Coalesce and recombine
Give me space and give me time
The fabric here is yet unfaded
Hidden as it is from sun
A tack is missing, lost unaided
Swept away by cleaning done
My finger finds a tiny tear
No one will ever see it there
How many flaws are cached aquiet
By a simple circumstance?
I lightly tap the tauntness by it
And feel a healing now advance
My flaws are not for all to see,
Their significance — twixt God and me
HEART DISLOCATED
My heart travels places
and stays where it wishes
Sometimes goes up my throat
and takes time to unload
Towards others hearts it eases
and protected from tearing to pieces
I sometimes search for it
and find it trembling in a pit
I then lift it with a heave
and leave it in my sleeve
-Azma Sheikh
Remarkable!
YOSEMITE’S GATE
Capturing the gifts,
loud silence pierces
Mother’s creation
of His earthly wishes.
Atop the throne of his territory
Half Dome sits proud
Controlling the rights
that nature has vowed.
In honor of their being
peaked trees stand guard
Justifying the fact
that turbulence is barred.
Mirroring the mountain
tranquil is the Merced
Who comforts the beauty
of earth on its bed.
Snow ices the cake,
untouched where it lays,
Of the natural surroundings
man is yearning to gaze.
The acres are priceless,
majestic, and so
Truly worth of being
a heaven below.
What a wonderful; tribute.
loud silences pierces in the first line and just gets better as it goes. nicely done
Mystical Life
I take flight in fancy
Irridiscent wings shining bright
‘Neath a clear azure sky
All is well, all is right
Spiritual Hearing
In whispering winds
In roaring seas, I hear
The Universe speak
Understood. Amen.
27 Down
13 across was easy enough, that guy
who played Kojak, and 5 down didn’t
give me any trouble, either, because
I just watched the movie Contact. But
then 27 down was the name of that
song, sitting there all innocent with a
blank in it, like maybe I’ve never heard
it, like maybe you didn’t wear the blue
Henley that night and maybe I didn’t
somehow smile at you just right and
maybe we didn’t draw together like two
magnets straight out of G’s Physics
class. And so then maybe you didn’t
reach up and brush my hair back be
-hind my ear, and maybe I didn’t sigh
and the song didn’t say the words my
heart was screaming again and again
in my crazy rattled chest even though
I tried to tell it to shut the hell up and
behave. Maybe I didn’t save the next
dance and the next and the next for you,
and then the last one, too, even though
by then you’d moved on to Darcy Rollins
who let’s face it, knew how to push
things up where they belong. And maybe
I didn’t long or pine or cry or pen ridic
-ulous lyrics in margins for weeks to
come, or wonder if I’d just been dumb
to think you’d ever want to dance with
me in the first place. And maybe I can
just erase 27 down, and good old sweet
16, too, get on with the rest of this dumb
puzzle. Or maybe I’ll take up Sudoku.
.
This is brilliant. But I want to know what the answer to 27 Down is!
To paraphrase “the Matrix” There is no 27 Down.
the clue is “I _____ Known Better”… right?
very clever “location” poem, btw!
This flows like a stream, all the way to 27 Down. Superb.
Love it! Well worked!
Lacustrine
Like Yeats, I hear lake water lapping at my heart’s core;
moss-green smell of freshwater, carried on linnet wings,
permeates this landscape of stucco and asphalt.
In my suburban city, promises of peace
reflect data from city planners and police,
not the slow-dropping peace Yeats and I once knew.
Oooh, this stings a bit, but does it well.
Nicely contrasted. Ah, for a touch of Yeats. . . .
Thanks guys! and yes, I love my Yeats.
(also I really hope no one thinks I’m trying to rhyme peace with Yeats…! things you worry about after the fact…)
DESOLATION NATION
Peering out the window opening; leering
at the vastness of a vacuous void,
there are no life forms appearing
and I feel a bit annoyed.
Volunteering for a mission
is just another way of saying
I give you my permission
to be used as you see fit. Playing
hero (when martyr would suffice nicely)
and I know to get back from this place
I will need to get out of this space, precisely
what I did NOT want to do. In case
you aren’t listening, the sounds around
are vacant. In space no one can hear you
scream for Ice Cream (no matter how big the mound),
it would melt before the spoon got near you.
So, I don my suit, untried; untested,
and strap my boots to seal my feet,
If I wore this at home, I’d be arrested
but, on this planet, it can’t be beat.
I press the button to raise the panel
and nothing appears to transpire.
I press it again on this stupid panel
with no result but to fan my ire.
I need release, my mission is clear,
I need to step down to step on the soil,
I haven’t a clue how to get out of here
despite my training and years of toil.
I pound on the door with furious fists,
yelling at the intercom transmitter,
but this innocuous box, it surely resists,
frustrated am I, but I’m no quitter.
“Open the pod bay doors, Hal!” I scream,
but the response, it does not save me.
“I’m afraid that I can’t do that, Dave!” it seems
this spaceship has enslaved me.
I have no qualms about dying in space,
though this isolation is truly scary,
Besides, its memory is a disgrace,
I’m so screwed. I’m not Dave. I’m Larry!
Bravo!
You Are Here
You are here. And so am I. I’m glad
you could find me amid all the chaos.
How’d I find this place? Not easy.
Started in my dark bedroom this morning
and bumped into the dresser. I thought
I was on the trail in the shower,
but got shampoo in my eyes
and lost the way. Once I hit the road,
I thought I’d remember the way,
as I usually do, but I was distracted
by two cars trying to occupy
the same space and time.
Thought I’d found this spot
in the parking lot,
but it was just another slot
way far from where I knew
you’d like to sit. In the office?
Nothing. So I sat down and
drew this map from foggy memory.
Slow work when your tired old mind
has lost its way again.
But here we are, right where
I’d hope we’d be. You are here.
So am I. End of the line.
LOST IN PARANOIA
(a shadorma)
In the dark
place of living in
shadows, there
is only
speculation of truths found
in the light of day.
Wow. This little piece carries a big stick. Wonderful.
Taos, NM
I’m always telling everyone
I’ve never been anywhere.
Now I say Taos is my dream
travel destination.
I do not have great reasons.
They may or may not coincide
with my suspicions
that people visit places
simply to say the name
again and again.
Would you tire
of saying Reykjavík?
Maybe you are more
of a Machu Picchu type.
I myself want to be
more Saskatchewan
or Riga, at least
in some ways. But I know
as much about these places
as I do about Issaquah
and Butte. Or even places
like Philadelphia
where I’ve lived
much of my life.
I love this. I also love the place — and the sound — of Taos.
Echo
(a Triolet)
There’s a murmur in her heart,
but they can’t find it –
the tissue is too scarred.
There’s a murmur in her heart
and once it’s torn apart,
they’ll try to bind it.
There’s a murmur in her heart,
but they can’t find it.
.
So simple and so profound: “once it’s torn apart”.
Dislocate
The night I asked you to leave
your childhood home, your family,
your two dogs and three cats,
it must have felt like pulling
your shoulder out. The
afternoon we carried your
clothes, your furniture, your
knick-knacks with nothing
but intrinsic value up the small
staircase, it must have felt like
a clumsy doctor cramming
the bone back in the socket.
And the mornings we’d shower
together, eat together, drive in
together, it must have felt like
he pushed the bone in way too far
and that you would never settle again.
Bittersweet.
Desiderio
All the day I longed for Italia
remembering the blue green sea.
I thought if I could purchase
Parmesiano from the grocery
or drink Limoncello, tart and cold,
to cleanse the palate and soothe the throat
or eat aciuge, salty and bold,
or read tales of Dante I could quote,
Ah, then, I’d be in Nervi for sure;
the olive groves, the vines of grapes
where on terraced hills a warbler trills.
But to be in the Italia I know
Stop’n Shop is not the place to go.
Nice. Ha. ha, bellissimo! Well done.
Grazie mille!
Bingo! Great!
Two more words that describe Italia!
Ha! Nice twist at the end after such lovely images.
And true!
Worry
From the deck of a heaving ship
He prays that his family is safe
The tempest has him in its grip
From the deck of a heaving ship
At home watching the storm as a blip
She knows where he is (and it chafes)
On the deck of that heaving ship
She prays that her husband is safe
Diana Terrill Clark
Oh, so beautiful.
Amen to that.
The place where the cricket lives — Ina Roy-Faderman
Sometimes I visit the place where the cricket lives
along with a lock of hair.
Three pine trees make a forest
when the trees are so tall that,
for all I knew,
they weren’t green triangles piercing the clouds
but spires coalescing out of the sky to
reach down to root in the grass.
Sometimes the last star of the night
makes a pink show before the sun rises
and everything is exposed:
the elephant is just grey plush,
Barbie has put aside her astronaut’s gear
and her feet cannot hold her,
the old cat won’t get his joy ride
in the green metal convertible
until the sun sets again.
Wonderful!
Nice, like a fairy tale.
Didn’t someone (Walt, maybe?) figure out how to indent on here? Does it require much tech savvy?
I assume it will involve a lot of spacebar clicks
just so
and then
maybe
so.
This
what
you
mean?
Oops, did not work. Hmm, curiouser and curiouser…
Yes Nancy. However, space bar clicks as dhaivid3 suggested, will not get the desired effect. Under normal circumstances the comment box only recognizes the first space and ignores the rest. You need to “insert” the desired number of spaces to achieve this.
On a standard 102 key keyboard, the number pad comes into play. For each spaces you need to key
ALT+0160, releasing between each space. It is labor intensive but worth the effort. I’ve yet to master this on a laptop or my iMac.
Day 23: Location poem
“Caged”
They gather,
hundreds each day,
staring, whispering,
sometimes shouting.
I long to be out of their gaze,
long to break out of this cage
like a big cat at the zoo
that huffs,
startling the bratty kid
throwing peanuts
between the bars.
But I stay at my post –
a cash register
the only barrier between me
and the ogling swarm,
while the smell of fast food
wafting from the kitchen behind me,
drives the animals crazy.
EX MARKS THE SPOT
She flashed this life briefly
chiefly to reassure that
her ability to rebound
from profound sadness
would quell the madness
of his intense expressions.
Each session of their tryst
would make her eyes mist over,
and before she was covered
in clover, she would know
where their hearts were buried.
She remains to be carried
in the hollow of his chest,
the best place she could be.
She possessed it; caressed it,
claimed it, marking the spot.
Mix of sad and happy (almost as if in order to retain the happy, he has to endure the sad). Well done.
my guess is that the title indicates she is his ex-wife, am I right?… I enjoyed your rhyming here SO much… as I think of it right now, probably for me this poem exhibits better rhyming than anything Frost wrote (and believe me, I thought very seriously before making that statement)… and I also enjoyed the way that the woman in the poem surrenders to the man, and yet even so, she owns him… very effective, all of it!
Sorry grcran, but not an ex-wife. Best case is ex-wife of my life.Her passing has been celebrated here often since 2009. She was a very loving/giving person who does indeed “own” me. Something that doesn’t easily go away. And my flaw is that I like my poems to rhyme, and that internal rhyme adds more power to a poem. (IMO). Thank you for your kind words. I am humbled by them.
ex-LOVE of my life… you had me thinking…
I too have learned something of spouses dying, one in 2011, another in 2013 (cancer both)… not sure why that explanation didn’t occur to me… thanks for making it clear!… helps me get the poem even better, too
This asks to be read over and over. It carries me along with a force of its own.
Journey’s End
the system’s been
malfunctioning awhile
now, so i must accept
the inevitable
being inexorably pulled down
there’s no escaping
this impossible force
must be the end
coming
(jettisoned through
the escape pod)
blinded by the light
the sea releases me
exhumed, i’m washed away
ripped from silence
and warmth
the coziness of
zero-g replaced with
the heaviness
of this new alien
atmosphere
noise enwraps me
in a sonic assault
shapes swim up
out of focus
wobbly strips
zigzag in random
patterns
pushed, prodded
poked, polished
as a precious jewel
wrapped in velvet
i hear my mother’s voice
(and turn in that direction)
the camera of my eyes
going ECU (extremely
close-up), so i can see her
better
finally, in her arms,
her kiss, a warm tender
welcome to an otherwise
cold world,
i can go back to sleep
knowing i’m safe in her arms
the mission’s complete
Where I Long To Be – Marie H. Fitts
Wherever You are is where I long to be
I am nothing without you
Flesh of flesh bone of bone
At home in the body
Is away from You
But in your presence
I am complete
Your Spirit nourishes my soul
I am light transcending space and time
Linear
I exist only to love You
I reside in You
Your Spirit in me
We dwell in The Father
Yesterday
Today
Forever
Nice, lovely!
AT GRANDPA’S RIVER HOUSE
Spanish moss dangled from large oak branches
like beards hanging from the chins of old men
the rhythmic rumble of a slow moving car
crossing over the rusted metal, one-lane bridge
was all that broke the quiet of early morning
as I sat on your lap and listened to your stories
while you drank your coffee on the porch
that overlooked the gentle flow of the river
the smell of bacon cascading toward us
directed our gaze to the kitchen window
where Granny smiled and waved to us
in that moment I was too innocent to know
that forty years hence I had gained a memory
Daniel Roessler
Superb! Heart-achingly beautiful.
Sweetly expressed and felt. Brings back some memories of my own.
Anatomy Lesson (Dislocation)
The volar surface of the radius
connects the forearm-bone to the wrist.
Separation from the ulna
allows twist. Ballast at the flex
includes triquetrum, scaphoid, lunate.
Their recitation like a spell does not
perform as one expects. Your grip
remains unbroken. Unknown parts
separate.
I gamble away carpal tokens
which you drunkenly rearrange.
The handbell of the radius
seems to have been misplaced.
Agony is strange. All the senses
wake to tell: whiskey on your breath,
my naked back, lone night-bird
singing on the fence.
A misalignment of the radiolunar joint
is called a Galeazzi fracture.
When I hear my own scream echo,
I know I am here. You seem to
become water: muddied, drowning,
then terribly clear.
Nice! Love the use of technical language in verse.
Yes!
Wow! Nicely worked, technical, clean, informative and poetic!
“In the War”
In my front view lies a log.
It’s rotting bark veiled in moss.
In it’s copious recesses I see a frog.
Sitting in terror with its front legs crossed.
All around are biting flies and mosquitos.
The bugs of the jungle are curious creatures.
They find every opening of your clothes.
They can’t wait to explore your body’s features.
Looking above I can’t really see the sky.
The canopy obscures my view.
I’ll do anything to forget the burning in my thighs.
Insects sting as does the sharp bamboo.
Shooting stars fly past my face.
Glowing bright as they look for flesh.
I can’t walk but gotta get back to base.
My legs feel like worn, torn mesh.
I don’t want to die here in this place.
In this jungle I’ll be eaten alive.
I can already feel the bugs eating at my face.
I need to survive.
The bullets felt hot at first.
Then the blood felt cold.
My friends return fire in bursts.
I can’t see, but I think the enemy is beginning to fold.
Will I ever walk again?
Will I ever go home?
Come and get me then!
Au revoir, Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye, shalom.
I can feel my body begin to move.
Is it my soul moving on?
I won’t disapprove.
My blurry eyes are suddenly drawn.
The caduceus flanked by U.S.
Stamped on the pack of our medic, Shawn.
Tugging and dragging me under stress.
We’re heading back to the landing zone.
I made it, I’m going home.
I won’t die here all alone.
By: Damon Zallar
Why does auto “correct” make the contraction instead of the possessive form of the word, it? So annoying!
“In the War”
In my front view lies a log.
Its rotting bark veiled in moss.
In its copious recesses I see a frog.
Sitting in terror with its front legs crossed.
All around are biting flies and mosquitos.
The bugs of the jungle are curious creatures.
They find every opening of your clothes.
They can’t wait to explore your body’s features.
Looking above I can’t really see the sky.
The canopy obscures my view.
I’ll do anything to forget the burning in my thighs.
Insects sting as does the sharp bamboo.
Shooting stars fly past my face.
Glowing bright as they look for flesh.
I can’t walk but gotta get back to base.
My legs feel like worn, torn mesh.
I don’t want to die here in this place.
In this jungle I’ll be eaten alive.
I can already feel the bugs eating at my face.
I need to survive.
The bullets felt hot at first.
Then the blood felt cold.
My friends return fire in bursts.
I can’t see, but I think the enemy is beginning to fold.
Will I ever walk again?
Will I ever go home?
Come and get me then!
Au revoir, Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye, shalom.
I can feel my body begin to move.
Is it my soul moving on?
I won’t disapprove.
My blurry eyes are suddenly drawn.
The caduceus flanked by U.S.
Stamped on the pack of our medic, Shawn.
Tugging and dragging me under stress.
We’re heading back to the landing zone.
I made it, I’m going home.
I won’t die here all alone.
By: Damon Zallar
Very compelling, auto “correct” or not!
This is powerful and masterful writing, in my view.
Thanks
Looking for home
From the lamb
bleating
in the field
wandering circles
to the
squinted eyes
staring
at controls
as Earth spins below
in the all in-between
creatures young, old,
plaintive, contemplative,
searching, and even
those foolishly believing
they are there
all are floating
floating in the
filament of the
infinite silken strands
self constructed paths
weaving a waving
tapestry through the
universal beyond
dark into light
light into dark
floating
destination
uknown
‘Floating’ aptly describes the feeling this evokes.
Indeed. The whole thing has a liquid feeling. Wonderful.
Aww thanks William – I have the first “floating” …floating on my site – have not yet figured out how to get this configured on this site … I’ll leave that for this challenge to the masters of the likes of Walt and De… Appreciate your comment very much
Thank you so very much for taking the time to read, to stop to comment …
Deasons
Daniel R. Simmons
I remember growing up and rocking that old English D
As I cheered on the Tigers from Fall to Spring
I’m sorry I mean from Spring to Fall
In Detroit we don’t mind the cold at all
Spending summer nights on the Riverwalk
Sometimes I wish that the neighborhood girls still played with chalk
Summers turned campus Martius into to a fountain Spring
Come winter it’s a skating rink
Media acting like murder and poverty only exist in the streets of the D.
The same is true for any other inner city, from La to New Your city
So why stick up your nose and pick on my city
Every city has those parts that they’re ashamed to broadcast
So please stop bashing Detroit on your podcast
Just like Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring
Detroit has gone through many changes
Look and see
We’ve gone through the bitter cold
As the media buries us deep beneath the snow
We are facing the heat and pressure of bankruptcy
We Fall back, but now we will Spring forward
Yes we are moving forward in positive change
After all nothing ever remains the same
Every city has its reasons and seasons
But this is the D call it Deasons
I like this very much. It applies to lots of old cities, but I’m going to remember “Deasons.”
April 22, 2014
Day 22
Ridgeline
Here we are again overlooking
the ricochet of everything below
against a scraggy mountainside
on a ideal Monday morning.
Sweet investigation of birds we can’t
see without our awkward glasses,
my curious tourist sharing almonds
like they’re everyday peanuts
with a mountain squirrel
who can probably answer
the questions I’m too afraid to ask
in complete sentences. And the
ferns pulse, lining the sides
of utterly everything, like
they’ve quietly listened
to every secret you’ve ever told.
Brie Huling
This is good stuff. In fact, I like a lot of your work here, Brie. I’m a fan.
Nice.
Somebody burned the school down
on April Fool’s Day.
I thought my friend was joking
when she called with the news.
I scoffed at the preppies
when they cried over the building.
Maybe it makes me bad,
but I really don’t care.
I was happy to see the halls I feared
Covered in smoke and ash.
-Karen Sanders
modern letter poem: 04/23/2014
09:18
waited 15 minutes
hands on the café clock
mock me at 45 degree angles
I’m moving on…
09:43
goofed
thought we were meeting at 10
now idle
DAMN streetlight!
on the Loop
sorry
maybe we can catch up later
11:54
a pyromaniac in a petrified forest
that’s me – crazy guy – n this job
need to get out
lunch at the metro deli?
11:56
ooh, I’m at Tawdry Tips
half-way through a pedicure
I’ll try to frost n dry quick
to hobble over…
paper flip flops — all the rage?
12:08
damn
the architect of decay
came by my cube
he’s going to kill
the stradbury project
need to stay n campaign
never mind
13:25
ate out of vending machine
was reliably unsatisfying
14:03
hon… you need sunshine
I ate in the park
birds are molting
I picked three feathers
out of mustard on my veggie burger…
16:34
ugh! … is there NO decency in this world?
just shoved outside Macys
by some guy as wide as a bulldozer
I ended up ass down in a mud puddle…
18:53
check your pockets for fish
18:54
WTH is that supposed to mean…?
19:07
means – been at the office too long
I want to have dinner with you
but truth is
it’s easier
to meet up with a transient
19:23
LOL… I’m home now
drumming to the White Stripes
on table with chopsticks
thinking about … General Tso Chicken
or Mu Gu Gai Pan
umm… ordering…
take off that tie n come by
19:25
perfect
19:28
just got a message from Lisa…
Gary packed up n moved out
un-freaking-believable!!!
stepping over to her place…
call me when you arrive
21:46
you never called… ?
21:47
true
wow almost 10
I needed
decompressing
grabbed a burger on the way home
old habits die hard
21:49
but I ordered those crazy
chocolate rangoons
you love so much
now I have a cold carton
of Mu Gu Gai Pan …
22:11
was hungry for more than that today
Awesome storytelling! Although sad.
Nicely “over”worked!
-jesus off the cross-
I possess my son to ask into his heart a milkman based on comprehension.
I am father whose mind drifts for dear life.
I have a bowl
for the parts of me
don’t work. bowl gets full
I get a dog
for a day.
when day is done
day becomes a meditation
on dog’s
whereabouts.
I obsess to maturity my daughter who is the bliss
the brainless
hammer
finds.
busy as a blood trail
it is still my mother
passing only
the time
in violence
not sudden.
Title: One Day Out of the Week
One day out of the week,
make the most of it,
movie, carbs, and sugar water.
Unfold the futon,
I fold into you- my safe space,
the child is at peace… this is good.
Start to fall asleep,
Shaken-knocking at the back door.
I’m not home! I moved; can’t you read the signs?
We only see each other
one day out of the week
Obligation.
Turn around and hold you,
eye contact may make you understand,
only entices.
My body disappears,
can’t turn on my turn on,
depression from your constant pressing on.
Notice long strands of brown scattered-that is my hair, right?
Fake it? I’ve done that before,
I’m quite the actress-you respond well to oohs and ahs
of your perceived firework display.
The rocket launch is always painful,
become frustrated lighting the fuse, but the show must go on.
Reposition, shove, until you reach the grand finally.
Leave the safe space,
Disassociate into outer space,
Maybe I’ll catch a better view.
A paper doll,
folded, twisted, dripping scribbles of ink,
never the creator-only the receiver of gifts.
Empty boxes, kidding yourself,
I’ve written beautiful and scandalous songs with different pens,
little did you know.
One day a week turned into proposed eternity,
agreed to share a space,
I thought you were going to save me,
from myself.
I didn’t need saving…needed savoring.
But you wanted to chew and swallow to quiet the craving-
never satisfied.
Fight-second thoughts,
make up sex is the cure all,
I deny you.
The next morning-a change of heart,
you think you only left question marks,
No-scars of trauma.
Fireworks blew in my face…shattered my identity,
something I could never predict.
We made it
only one day out of the week.
Time has passed by-needed much more than I thought.
I’ve grown now,
construction paper,
too thick for your thick
to penetrate without paper cuts.
Ruminated for a while, but
now you’re a random thought,
an old stain on that damn futon,
can’t say it’s been an empty space,
but you’ll never know,
I won’t even give you one day out of the week.
-Emily Lasinsky
Wow. This is a heart-wrencher.
It is that, and penned powerfully.
Painful.
THE CORNER TABLE
A couple at the corner table
near the back of Vito’s Italian Café
sit against the backdrop of
faux painted Tuscan walls
doing their best imitation of happiness
the red checkered tablecloths blend
with the lipstick of her painted on smile
his caramel eyes are distant as they
follow the twenty-something waitress
gliding across the room toward the bar
when her wine glass is empty
their love ruse is finally over
and her eyes are filled with tears
there will be no tiramisu
at the corner table.
Daniel Roessler
Here you brought me back to civilization – and smile when saying: Wonderful poem!
Oh no, so sad. Well written.
Oh, this is superb. Sad, but superb.
Agreed.
The wrong place
home isn’t home
if the heart
is not
hearts nest
in true friends
monopoly
hopscotch
on a map
we are drifters
of the new
economy
leaving a
birthplace
going where
the work is
doesn’t make
this home
people differ from
town to burrow
county to state
some friendly
forthcoming
sunny places
some cold
ill-disposed
hill-country
hollers
this town
has dutch roots
rule ridden
deep in tradition
friendship forecasts
frosted manners
and surly souls
slamming doors
on new faces
if only I could
blow and scatter
my neighbors
to the wind
so each
wooden shoe
could find
compassion
walking
the footsteps
of a
newly
landed
soul
On Locating a Memory
The photograph with
curled edges
calls out to her from
her long-ago past yet
she can’t locate
the memory.
The photograph of
pink lacy
dresses and white
knee-high socks on
three young sisters
with futures.
The memory is
lost with
death snatching two.
She sits alone
seeking to find
connection.
The photograph with
the faded images
reminds her that she
too will soon
re-locate and find
her memory.
Nice!
Poignant and quietly powerful work.
“Growing Up in Southboro Park”
A landmark in my mind, forever there;
Southboro Park: a place not far from school.
Forever pasted in my memory’s share.
I do recall that day I was a fool.
The end of summer and a picnic planned.
My dress; a strapless, Lerner’s, stretchy bust.
My mother warned against such fashion-grand
for adolescent boys are curious.
And so we played a reckless game of tag.
Careening forth, he clutched my frock. I frowned,
appalled as any queen but there’s no lag
in laughter as, thread-bare, I tumbled down.
Oh, vivid still; my rosy cheeks and tears
amid the jeering pleasure of my peers.
(anyone remember cotton dresses from the 1940′s purchased at Lerners (a national chain).Top of the dress made like a stretchy stocking so a girl could go ‘strapless’ in the summer. Not a ‘smart’ thing to wear to a teenager’s picnic.)
)
Wow, you capture the scene so well. In all your work that I have read, I always enjoy the vivid nature of the details.
You painted this so well, one needn’t remember Lerner Shops or the dresses. But I do.
Great details, well worked.
Of Donne
The little big island
so far out in the sea
is where I go
when I need
no locks,
blinds,
a cup of tea
with someone who says
it feels good
with a breath of fresh air
from the world outside.
Wonderful!
Marvellous!
WHERE I GREW UP
There were no high-rise apartments
where I grew up in a small town
with a few traffic lights and a
couple of Mexican restaurants
convenience stores and fast-food joints.
Summers were hot and winters were sparse
where I grew up in South Texas
pump jacks from another time
resembled big metal grasshoppers
bowing their heads as I drove by
in my blue pickup truck.
Friday nights were for football games
where I grew up in the stadium’s shadow
the players were gods worshipped
for their inherited athletic prowess
while those of us who didn’t play
were nothing but ignored.
Pastures of cattle were commonplace
where I grew up in rural America
there were no mechanical bulls
our cowboys were real not imitations
saddled up on living, breathing horses
appreciating and respecting the land
where I grew up.
Daniel Roessler
Wonderful, descriptive poem. I could see it, smell it, taste it…
Thanks. So glad that it resonated with you.
So could I.
Love Culture
This is no place for falling out of love.
Love quotes hang like bunting in the rafters.
“We loved with a love that was more than love”
side by side with “happy ever after.”
Pages of love poems paper the walls.
“I Loved You First,” “The White Rose,” “Flirtation.”
Poets scream sonnets in every hall.
The moon murmurs slick, sweet meditations.
Throats are foot thick with love songs and lyrics.
“At Last,” “Crazy,” “I Will Always Love You.”
Louder, louder to drown out the cynics -
“Just Like a Woman.” With or Without You.”
Here, you are either Venus or vulture,
lip locked deep in a phony love culture.
Kelli Simpson
This is a great poem. The line “Love quotes hang like bunting in the rafters” is exceptional.
Masterful, this.
Excellent.
Between
The spaces between intrigue me,
mythical Scylla and Charybdis,
proverbial rock and a hard place,
or less obvious…
the moment before I saw you,
unaware I stood on a threshold
of understanding what it means to love,
and still so many months away
from knowing, truly,
what it means to break.
Bingo! This hits home with a bang.
Mm, yes.
Morning’s Glory
sunrise was coloring the morning
as I walked along the trail
a figure peddled toward me
helmeted head bent down
legs pumping
did he see the thistle blooming
someone jogged by in chartreuse spandex
iPod clipped to her shirt
ears plugged with music
can she hear the chickadee sing
a woman passed me easily
arms held high clutching weights
power walking I suppose
does she feel the whispered breeze
I stroll on down the trail
and nourish my body and my soul
Sympatico, here.
Follow Me 2 A reVison
Follow me to Xanadu –
we’ll search the Cane Palace
where gilded dragons guard the Kahn
Follow me to Oz –
along the yellow road together
we’ll uncover the secret of the Wizard
Follow me to Elsinore –
to tread the path of a tragic prince
and wait the night for Hamlet’s ghost
Follow me among the stacks –
the world awaiting us
in a book
Follow me
Follow me
Where It’s At
by Roderick Bates
The Earth rotates daily as it travels a 585 million mile loop around the Sun, one star toward the outer end of one pinwheel arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, which turns lazily as it moves toward eventual collision with the Andromeda Galaxy, all of this going on in an ever-expanding universe.
I live on 9 acres, up a longish dirt road, outside a village of 830 people, in a rural county in Vermont, and I fret about my boundary with my neighbor to the northeast, which makes about as much a sense as if I were a tick feeling territorial about one patch of skin on the neck of a moose as it crashes through cedars on its way to a particular bog.
Love this.
Love the images and contrast.
Bubble Bath
If the house won’t sell
Know millions share your quandary
Nice place; overpriced
Kimberly Gladman Jackson
Airport-A Cinquain
Airport
Endless long lines
Endless waiting around
Check in baggage, find gate, board plane
Depart
PROMISES
You have said you would go
To the ends of the earth
To fulfill all the dreams
Of the one you adore.
That must be the only
Location you’d go to
Since you are not willing
To meet in the middle.
Ok, that’s funny. Nicely done.
Agreed.
Really clever work!
BINGO!
Amen!
really great
This Place
The place of my past
The place of my presence
Are connected only by my person
Yes, I was there
And I am the one who is here
It is said…
You can’t go home again
It was true for me
If you attempt to return
To your former home
You will find no one there
Nothing is the same
The children have grown
The dog died
You have moved on
Always in the process of
Creating a new home
In the now it will always be
The home of an older person
Meeting the needs of an older person
You focus will always be so
Like the hermit crab
The old shell no longer fits
Each unique step of the way
Is similar to the one before
But never identical
Each day a new season
A new day
So true. I love that the hermit crab keeps finding new shells and that our focus is always on another
Crossing the GW at Night
We drove into the gateway,
steel arches rising like a promise.
The red taillights lured us
like flies into a flame
while the white headlights
made it impossible
to turn around.
Then there was the river,
ink black and cold,
pulling us in if we let it,
moving slowly to the sea.
In the back of station wagon,
I crossed myself three times,
trying not to look down.
Marvellous! I was there too.
STOPPING BY THE OLD HOUSE
I stand in the driveway
marveling how small the house really is,
how tiny the garage
which was sailing ship,
fortress, and dungeon
back in my day.
A brief detour on my way home
from a sales trip
brought me within 5 miles
of my origins,
So here I am.
I find the meadow anxious
with grasshoppers and heat shimmer
and knew I was home.
There was the set of steps
where I required seventeen stitches,
back there the pine tree
I was afraid to climb down
for two solid days.
The first house I had ever known –
the back stairs that led to our room,
the dining room where the poodle -
in an epileptic frenzy -
smashed himself to death,
the garden room closed off
and only accessible
if you pull out the refrigerator
to get something out of storage,
and even the cedar room
in the center of the attic,
the source of much fantastical terror.
I sit on the stoop,
soaking up sunlight
like I did when I was ten
and I can hear my mother’s voice
calling my name.
Supper must be ready.
This reminds me of Mark Twain and his visit to his old home in Hannibal, and remarking that if he came back in another ten years, it’d be the size of a birdhouse. I love this piece.
Geysers
Earth breathes
Exhaling steamy breath
Strangers stop and stare
very nice
They’d better be careful! Nice, indeed.
Jesus is Like…
Alaska
Wide open, welcoming
A refuge, an adventure, a call
Washington
Freely flowing water
Offering abundant spring-like life
Florida
A sunny state midst growth
Strength and help in raging hurricanes
Hawaii
Fine fragrance, graciousness
Lavish, verdant beauty, joy and love
Follow Me
Follow me to Xanadu –
we’ll search the Cane Palace
where gilded dragons guard the Kahn
Follow me to Oz –
along the yellow road together
we’ll uncover the secret of the Wizard
Follow me to Elsinore –
to tread the path of a tragic prince
and wait the night for Hamlet’s ghost
Follow me to Heaven –
paradise awaiting us
in an embrace
Follow me
Follow me
Where I Grew Up
In a shaded P-A valley
a house’s ghost haunts
where a young couple,
fresh after WWII,
raised five girls.
Rabbits, deer,
bobcats, bear
wander through,
unafraid of the hunter
who once lived there.
I just started reading through other poems after posting several of mine and I see that we share the same title to our poems. Nice work on this poem!
Location is Everything
Oh no! Late again!
St. Anthony hear my plea…
Help me find my keys!
Hah! I know this feeling.
Montana
I want to dare that haunted hallowed land
Lay ear to ground and hear the memories that still reverberate through that earth
Walk bare-footed through that forest floor and whisper to that untainted plain
“you’re still free, you’re still free”
I want to dance as the Indians danced
Without reserve
Before they knew “reservation”
Before they knew evil
I want to breathe air unfiltered by human congestion
View a skyline formed of snow capped mountains only
Hear the world as it sounds
The way it should sound
Without the cacophony of man made madness
Let God speak hear
In beautiful whispers
And in thunderous exclamation
I come to you in spirit only
I come to you always
For peace is found in knowing
“you are there”
Still………
You are there
dawn bigelow
dawn bigelow aka dawnssong4u
beautiful
gorgeous…it reads like a sort of dance!
TASTE OF HISTORY
I’m in the garden – I don’t mean Eden,
where everything grew weedless without work.
This is my new garden, down in the east
pasture where our beloved oaks
don’t throw a shadow over tomatoes, chili
peppers, squash – the pasture we reclaimed
from turkey-mullein and star-thistle.
It needs a lot of nurturing, with compost
and shovel. Here’s a young bull-thistle rooted
among the new tomato sets. I wrestle it out
and throw it over the fence for our sheep
to find. In Eden, sheep would have starved
for thistle. In its place, an earthworm, garden-
friend of the nether regions.
Outside the gate, my dog has found a bone,
or maybe dug it up in her explorations
of soil. Longbone, deer who lived here before
the thought of man. On our coyote-
patrols at dawn, I find deer bones surfacing
among rimrock along the dry creekbed.
My dog is making a quiet study of this bone,
holding it gently between her paws,
testing its age and texture, its history.
Its aftertaste of marrow mixed with earth.
She’s young. She doesn’t feel how it tugs at her
to root into soil, become part of this place.
Lovely.
Wonderful descriptive poem!
Superb, as per usual.
On Location
She arrived at the restaurant
hair done, makeup just right.
The photographer said he would arrive
at 5:45 – she was nervous.
She sat at the table by the window
and stroked at the few stray hairs
that had fallen on her face.
She breathed in and leaned back.
As she did there he was.
He was exquisite in his good looks.
Chiseled face. Iconic eyes.
He smiled just slightly as
he shook her hand gently.
He held it a moment too long.
She blushed and looked down demurely.
He sat her again at the table and from nowhere
someone arrived to arrange the flowers and her cup.
Shots looking up,
shots looking left,
frowning,
pouting,
half smiling,
full smile.
Rearrange the table.
Shots looking up,
shots looking left,
frowning,
pouting,
half smiling,
full smile.
Break.
A shared cappuccino.
Tender moments in the sun.
He held her hand again gently.
I love this, despite a slight sense of foreboding.
Poem title: Life is a Delight
Strangers hurry by
Rushing off to work.
Little Johnny cries
While the tick, tock clock
Chimes the time as Three
And little girls with glee
Run around the block.
Mamas lift the lid
Little mouths to feed
Fathers till the soil -
Part of daily toil.
What a wondrous sight
Life is a delight
Rush from morning light
Until the last goodnight.
Goodnight.
This makes me feel good.
brings tears to my eyes because this is the epitome of life…home, family, people requiring our offering of toil…simply. wonderful.
p.s. esp. touched me as I’m reading between the ‘lifting of lids’ as supper cooks:)
The Forest
Breathe in
all luminous
chills you feel,
respect life’s
facets, gems
before your eyes,
nature’s keen
observances
reflected upon
a winding path.
Breathe out
any ominous
dread you feel,
weighted worries
of the world,
fear carried
senselessly;
all you need
is to let go
and breathe.
This is lovely – the kind of thing I’d like to have on my wall above my desk just to refresh my mind.
Priceless words that feel strong enough to last throughout time and in aeternum, supporting men and women everywhere through life.
So warm and so wise, this.
The Cottage
A quaint ambiance
welcomes weary ones–
maple embers crackle
at the hearth. The heart,
opening to forgiveness,
awakens quelled yens
as red and yellow tulips
reach for the sky,
friendships reunite.
Oh, how lovely.
Indeed it is.
gorgeous!
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Three little words spell the difference
between a pleasant residence,
and a money-sucking bloody hell hole.
Selling your soul to a realtor
for a good school district
and off-street parking is a stark revelation.
For as in any situation, it comes down
to those three little words that say so much:
“Location, Location, Location!”
KITCHEN TABLE, 6:24 A.M.
Coffee cooling.
I’m fooling myself thinking I’m glad
to be alive on such a gloomy morning.
Storm warnings and charcoal
to partly grey clouds, for crying out loud.
This is depressing.
I’m guessing I should get ready
to head to the same old steady job
that’s sapped 28 years of my energies
to get me to here… kitchen table, 6:27 A.M.
This smacks of simple courage.
Thanks, William!
I LOVE reading your words. always a dance to the senses and masterful art of internal rhyme:)
Janet, Thank you fro your kind words. Yes, I suppose I love to dance where words are involved..
PAD #23 prompt:
Place
.
insects astir –
all the dark places
I’ve been
The Chair
Electrifying!
or so I hope.
As I sit here
some spark
will ignite
my mind
and run
a live flame
from my brain
to my fingers
as the muse
spills her secrets
one
word
at
a
time.
Very nice. Touching as well.
Is it just a coincidence that the poem looks like a quill pen?
universal writer’s plea. love it:)
“in the Tatras”
this is a thing that God made:
mountains carved out of rock
like sculpture from a slab of marble,
only vast
and larger than words,
surrounded by thin, cold air,
crisper than a new sheet of paper,
filling the blue sky while the white sun
gives light to the day
from almost 93 million miles away
though it seems close enough to hold
in an outstretched hand
that would scoop it up like an egg
if it would not burn the flesh
in its ineffable heat.
it burns brilliantly while the snow
crunches underfoot
among the mountains
and the crisp air fills the lungs
like balm on a wound
or a melody sung on a violin
or a hand grasped in hand
Lovely.
Yes.
I want to go to the mountains…its been 26 years since I’ve been there! so lovely, and I love the way you began this poem.
Location Makes All the Difference
Ah, Great Lonesome, you would kill me
Spread like cancer through my soul
Not for lack of smiles and kisses
But for That which makes me Whole
Tell me, cold and nameless Hunger
What is it you covet so?
Tormenting both old and younger
With a hollow, weeping throe
Ah, Great Lonesome, fearless hunter
Stalking wonder for its prize
Taking prisoners without pity
Lodging in Want’s thankless sighs
Tell me, sad and homeless stranger
What is it you strive to seek?
Without pardon or permission
You trace teardrops on my cheek
Ah Great Lonesome, haunting fetter
But for tender triumph where
I can flee; a pining beggar
At the mercy of a prayer
Here, upon Love’s lavish promise
Though you taunt and weep and wail
I am safe within the comfort
Of One Love that cannot fail
© Janet Martin
I read this and for some reason I remembered that today is Shakespeare’s 450th. In my humblest of opinions, I am sure he would have been happy with this. You have undeniable skill. Thank you for writing it. Well done.
please accept my humble gratitude for this and every encouraging comment you bless these poets with. God bless.
Wonderful! Wonderful! Lonesome as a knife.
thank-you:)
I so enjoy reading your work and strive to write as well as you!
I’m blushing…and so honored. thank-you:)
This, like so much of your work, is so warm. And wonderful too.
Blessings to you for being a word-warrior here…helping us all to keep the poet’s faith:)
COLD DARK SHELL
The most brutal term in real estate
and the most honest,
an office condo with no heat,
no electricity, four walls and a roof.
Location was good though,
perfect for my specialty music store,
close to home, findable but
no need for downtown foot traffic.
Easy for UPS to whisk away
our well cushioned boxes
to every state and far overseas.
It took months to transform
the cold, dark shell into
a destination location, and years
into a space where music rang out,
problems were solved
and gear was sold.
Behind the colorful displays
and stacks of instruments
lurk metal studs and empty conduit.
How long will it be
before another realtor
speaks those three words
to another budding businessman?
Oh, reality and realtors. Very nice.
This poem snaps one to attention. Wonderful
Locatability
Google Maps pretends
I exist where that pink bubble is
when in fact I am here at my desk
writing a poem. Location: in
a real house, not a photo of one.
Google Maps tells people
to go along unsealed tracks
and get bogged down (and dirty,
waiting for Roadside Assistance).
The real road is asphalted.
Don’t get me wrong: I love maps.
Each town is a dot, is a story.
Every road and street and court
is a conversation, a community
where I can discover poetry.
My brother who makes maps
for a living began to notice
location as a postman. Now
he creates it, in fold-up sheets.
Monochrome, useful to tourists.
We map my poetic journeys
together, and give them voices.
The tracks are often uncharted
but navigation is easy. We look
for real people in real country.
Yes, and Siri, too. “Turn around! Turn around! You’re going the wrong way!” Can relate to your crafted words, thanks!
I love this. So touching.
That last sentence is TERRIFIC “We look for real people in real country” – it gave me shivers.
Yes, that’s the heart of it, i think.
very nice!
Most Important Location Ever…
Here.
Now.
Not
When or
If
But
Here.
Now.
Is all
There is…
© Janet Martin
Well done.
Marking My Bed, Resisting Wallace
encore, encore, encore, les dieux” — Wallace Stevens
My bed is fifteen feet from the weather
where Wallace Stevens grew gods and people.
I’m very glad the only thing growing
beyond is weeds and maybe more weather.
Oh yes, and still, the gods.
The miles between nineteen fifty-four
and the steel mills in a crippled town
is shorter than June in Jersey City,
a lonely moonlit summer.
The length of this bed is longer than me,
and my window is nothing like Stevens’
dream, filled with empty steeples and people.
Plenty of goods for me to see here, here
are more fears than I can dream in my sleep.
Bring on the adagios, the chants,
the weeds, the gods, crowd my bed from my head
to my toes so no room is right or left
for words that can change this climate.